[3] And there was seen another sign
in heaven: and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads, and ten horns:
and on his head seven diadems: [4] And his tail drew the third part
of the stars of heaven, and cast them to the earth:... (Rev.12:3-4)
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| the fallen angels with Lucifer |
Thereupon followed the punishment of Lucifer and his allies; for
after uttering his blasphemies against the Woman, who had been symbolized in
the heavenly sign, he found himself visibly and exteriorly transformed from a
most beautiful angel into a fierce and most horrid dragon like the picture below.
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| from the most beautiful angel |
 |
| to a horrified dragon |
He reared with fury
his seven heads, that is, he led on the seven legions or squadrons of all those
that followed and fell with him. To each principality or congregation of these
followers he gave a head, commanding them to sin on their own account and
undertake the leadership in the seven mortal sins, which are commonly called
capital. For in these are contained the other sins and they constitute as it
were the regiments that rise up against God. They are the sins called pride,
envy, avarice, anger, luxury, intemperance and sloth. They are the seven
diadems with which Lucifer, after being changed into a dragon, was crowned.
This is the punishment with which he was visited by the Most High and which he
acquired as a return for his horrible wickedness for himself and for his
confederate angels. To all of them were apportioned the punishment and the
pains, which corresponded to their malice and to the share which they had in
originating the seven capital sins.
The ten horns were the triumphs of the iniquity and malice of the dragon, and
the vain and arrogant glorification and exaltation which he attributed to
himself in the execution of his wickedness. In his depraved desire of attaining
the object of his arrogance, he offered to the unhappy angels his malicious and
poisonous friendship and his counterfeit principalities, commander ships and
rewards. These promises, full of bestial ignorance and error, were the tail
with which the dragon drew after him the third part of the stars of heaven.
These angels were the stars and if they would have persevered, they would have
shone with the rest of the angels and the just, like the sun through the
perpetual eternities (Dan. 12, 3). But the punishment which they merited drew
them down to the earth of their unhappiness into its very centre, which is
hell, where they will for all eternity be deprived of light and happiness (Jude
6).
