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Eureka

AN EXPOSITION OF THE APOCALYPSE
Sixth Edition, 1915
By Dr. John Thomas (first edition written 1861)

 

 

Chapter 9

Section 1 Subsection 7

"Power was given to the Locusts as the Scorpions of the earth have power."


 
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The bite or sting of the scorpion is generally fatal. Hence, the power of the locusts was a fatal power. They had scorpion-like tails, and in these tails was some of their power for destruction. But scorpion-like tails and stings were only symbolical of something analogous thereto. In Gibbon, I find the following solution of the mystery. "A Roman knight," says he, "who despised the swords and lances of the Saracens, relates his own fears at the sight and sound of the mischievous engines that discharged a torrent of the Saracen fire. ‘It came flying through the air’ says Joinville, ‘like a winged, long-tailed dragon, about the thickness of a hogshead, with the report of thunder and the velocity of lightning; and the darkness of the night was dispelled by the deadly illumination. The use of the Saracen fire, or, as it was afterwards called, the Greek fire, was continued to the middle of the 14th century, when the scientific or casual compound of nitre, sulphur, and charcoal, effected a new revolution in the art of war and the history of mankind."

An Arab writer in the Escurial collection, about the year 1249, thus speaks of what Joinville styles "a winged, long-tailed dragon," used by the Saracens: "The scorpions," says he, "surrounded and ignited by nitrated powder, glide along like serpents, with a humming noise, and, when exploded, they blaze brightly and burn. Now, to behold the matter expelled was as a cloud extended through the air, which gave forth a dreadful crash like thunder vomiting fire on every side, and breaking down, burning, and reducing all things to ashes."

 

 


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