The Dragon

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“Then another sign appeared in the sky; it was a huge red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on its heads were seven diadems. Its tail swept away a third of the stars in the sky and hurled them down to the earth. Then the dragon stood before the woman about to give birth, to devour her child when she gave birth.”Revelation 12:3–4

We have just seen the woman clothed with the sun, crying out in labor. Now St. John sees “another sign,” and it is terrible. A huge red dragon stands in front of her, waiting to devour her child.

Who is this dragon? We do not have to guess. A few verses later St. John tells us plainly: he is “the huge dragon, the ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, who deceived the whole world” (Revelation 12:9).

The serpent in the garden

“The ancient serpent” sends us back to the first pages of the Bible. God made the man and placed him in the garden. He gave him every good thing, with one command: do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:16–17). Then God made the woman, and the two were one.

Then the deceiver appears. “Now the snake was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made” (Genesis 3:1). He does not attack with force. He asks a question. He plants a doubt about God’s goodness. And the man and the woman, trusting him instead of their Father, eat. The Catechism says that this is what every sin is at root: disobedience and a lack of trust in God’s goodness (CCC 397). “By the envy of the devil, death entered the world” (Wisdom 2:24).

Jesus himself describes him the same way: “He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in truth, because there is no truth in him” (John 8:44). The NABRE note on Revelation 12:9 makes the link for us: the ancient serpent is the one who seduced Eve (Genesis 3:1–6). The snake in Genesis and the dragon in Revelation are not two different creatures. They are one and the same. Both are Satan.

The first gospel

Here is the hope. God did not leave the man and the woman alone in their fall. Before he spoke a word about the hardships the man and the woman would now face, he spoke to the serpent: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; They will strike at your head, while you strike at their heel” (Genesis 3:15).

The Church gives this verse a beautiful name: “This passage in Genesis is called the Protoevangelium,” the first gospel (CCC 410). It is the first announcement of the Messiah, and of the victory that will come through a descendant of the woman. Christian tradition sees in it the New Adam, who repairs Adam’s disobedience, and many Fathers and Doctors see in the woman Mary, the mother of Christ, “the ‘new Eve’” (CCC 411).

Now look again at Revelation 12. A woman, about to give birth. A serpent, waiting to strike at her child. This is Genesis 3:15 coming true before St. John’s eyes. And this is why the dragon stands where he stands. Satan understands God’s plan for our salvation. He knows the promise. He knows that the woman’s Son will crush his head. So he plants himself in front of her, ready to devour the child the moment he is born.

A third of the stars

St. John gives us a few details about the dragon. He is red, the color of blood. He has seven heads and ten horns, like the fourth beast in Daniel (Daniel 7:7). On his heads are seven diadems, royal crowns. The NABRE note on 12:3 explains that they stand for the fullness of the dragon’s sovereignty over the kingdoms of this world. We will meet the same heads and horns again on the beast of Revelation 13:1, the beast to which “the dragon gave its own power and throne, along with great authority” (Revelation 13:2). I will not say more about them here.

Then comes the line that has always struck me most: “Its tail swept away a third of the stars in the sky and hurled them down to the earth.” The NABRE points us to Daniel 8:10, where a proud power “cast down to earth some of the host and some of the stars.” Early Christian writers read these stars as angels. St. Victorinus of Pettau, in the oldest Latin commentary on Revelation that we have, says it should be understood “of the angels that were subject to him, since he was still a prince when he descended from his estate, he seduced the third part.”

This is the fall of the angels. The Church teaches that Satan was not created evil. Quoting the Fourth Lateran Council, the Catechism says: “The devil and the other demons were indeed created naturally good by God, but they became evil by their own doing” (CCC 391). Lucifer, the bearer of light, chose freely, radically and irrevocably to reject God and his reign (CCC 392). He did not fall alone. He drew others after him, and those angels became the demons.

His fury, and his limits

Once they have been thrown down, the fallen angels turn their rage on the Woman and her Son, on the New Eve and the New Adam, and on all who belong to them. St. John hears a voice cry out: “Woe to you, earth and sea, for the Devil has come down to you in great fury, for he knows he has but a short time” (Revelation 12:12).

That is a real warning, and I do not want to soften it. The devil is strong, and he hates us. But read the last words again: he knows he has but a short time. His fury is the fury of someone who has already lost.

The Catechism puts it calmly: “The power of Satan is, nonetheless, not infinite. He is only a creature, powerful from the fact that he is pure spirit, but still a creature. He cannot prevent the building up of God’s reign” (CCC 395). The dragon is huge, but God is not his equal. God is his Creator. And the child the dragon wanted to devour will be caught up to God and to his throne, as we will see in the next verse.

So when we look at this second sign, we do not look at it alone. We look at it with the first one still shining in the sky: the woman clothed with the sun, and the Child she carries. The serpent strikes at the heel. The Son crushes the head.

Sources

• NABRE, Revelation 12, text and notes (notes on 12:3, 12:4 and 12:9)
• NABRE, Genesis 2–3; Wisdom 2:24; John 8:44; Daniel 7:7; Daniel 8:10; Revelation 13:1–2
• Catechism of the Catholic Church, 391–395, 397, 410–411
• St. Victorinus of Pettau, Commentary on the Apocalypse, on chapter 12

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