Encountering Dragons: Cultural Proof for the Devil’s Existence

The Superior of the Jesuits, Fr. Arturo Sosa, recently denied the personal existence of the devil, calling him a personification of evil rather than an actual being–a symbol, he argued. He was quickly corrected by exorcists, who know the devil’s reality from personal experience.

It is true that the Catechism speaks of Genesis as using “symbolic language” in the Creation account (see CCC 362, 375), but this would mean that the serpent may be a symbol for the devil, not that the devil does not exist. The Hebrew word for snake, nawkhawsh, could be interpreted as dragon, which would make sense given that the serpent did begin with legs. There are several other Old Testament references to dragons (e.g., Psalm 91, Isaiah 51), but the the closest parallel to Genesis comes in Revelation 12 where the dragon, identified as the same serpent in Rev. 20:2, does battle with the new Eve. Thus, the Bible begins and ends with the struggle with the serpent/dragon.

There are a number of accounts of saints encountering dragons: St. Philip, casting dragons and serpents out of a temple of Apollo; St. James who made the sign of the Cross over a dragon; St. Martha (sister of Mary) defeating a beast in France named Tarasque, St. George the famous Roman solider of the 3rd century; St. Theodore of Amasea a contemporary Roman solider with St. George; St. Margaret of Antioch; and St. Donatus, a bishop who killed a dragon by spitting in his mouth. Interesting, all of these examples come from the earliest centuries of the Church.

The most famous book of saints in the Middle Ages, The Golden Legend, describes many of these conflicts, but St. Martha’s, which provides a great description of the monster:

There was that time upon the river of Rhone … a great dragon, half beast and half fish, greater than an ox, longer than an horse, having teeth sharp as a sword, and horned on either side, head like a lion, tail like a serpent, and defended him with two wings on either side, and could not be beaten with cast of stones nor with other armour, and was as strong as twelve lions or bears; which dragon lay hiding and lurking in the river, and perished them that passed by and drowned ships. He came thither by sea from Galicia, and was engendered of Leviathan, which is a serpent of the water and is much wood, and of a beast called Bonacho, that is engendered in Galicia. And when he is pursued he casts out of his belly behind, his ordure, the space of an acre of land on them that follow him, and it is bright as glass, and what it toucheth it burneth as fire. To whom Martha, at the prayer of the people, came into the wood, and found him eating a man. And she cast on him holy water, and showed to him the cross, which anon was overcome, and standing still as a sheep, she bound him with her own girdle, and then was slain with spears and glaives of the people.

The Golden Legend

While it is possible that these saints encountered real beasts, such as large reptiles, it also could be that they did battle with evil spirits who appeared in the guise (may we call it symbolic?) of a dragon. Many of the stories point to the power of prayer in overcoming the beast, reinforcing their spiritual import.The devil continues to appear as a dragon beyond those first and last scenes of the Bible.

If the devil finds the appearance of a dragon fitting for himself, it is no wonder that dragons appear not only in the Bible and lives of the saints, but in cultures across the entire globe. There may be some memory of the primeval battle, as well as nightmares that haunt people throughout time. Why would a dragon serve as a fitting image of the devil? The Bible tells us that the serpent was cunning, seeming to refer to its movements and ability to come and go with stealth. The dragon, more than the serpent, represents a mythical combination of attributes (snake, lions, birds, etc.), which give not simply stealth but power and fear on land, sea, and air. Both serpents and dragons contain lethal power, venom and fire, and both terrorize the stories of cultures throughout history.

It’s not surprising that Mesopotamian culture would also bear witness to dragons, as closely associated as it is with Israel. Here is a depiction from Babylon’s Ishtar gate:

In Egypt, Apep was the deity of chaos and, appropriately enough, the opponent of light and order. The great literature of the ancient world also bears testimony to dragons, from the Epic of Gilgamesh to The Golden Fleece (as well as the later Beowulf).

The most poignant example, however, comes from ancient Mesoamerican culture, which worshiped a feathered serpent, the most famous iteration of which came with the Aztec’s Quetzalcoatl. This serpent god appeared, in particular, within urban centers. The conquistador, Bernal Diaz del Castillo, describes three different encounters with dragon demons in the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, the site of massive human sacrifice:

[The priests] had scarcely done speaking when more than fifty of us began to mount the steps of the temple. We tore down the idols from their pediments, broke them to pieces, and flung them piecemeal down the steps. Some of these idols were shaped like furious dragons, and were about the size of young calves ; others with half the human form ; some again were shaped like large dogs, but all were horrible to look at (LI).

When we had reached the summit of the temple, we walked across a platform where many large stones were lying, on which those who were doomed for sacrifice were stretched out. Near these stood a large idol, in the shape of a dragon, surrounded by various other abominable figures, with a quantity of fresh blood lying in front of it (XCII).

I should term it a temple of hell ; for at one of its doors stood an open-mouthed dragon armed with huge teeth, resembling a dragon of the infernal regions, the devourer of souls. There also stood near this same door other figures resembling devils and serpents, and not far from this an altar encrusted with blood grown black, and some that had recently been spilt (XCII).

The Conquest of New Spain.

There is at least one example of a dragon deity from Sub-Saharan Africa, Ayida-Weddo from Benin, as well as the Rainbow Serpent of Aboriginal Australia. Far Eastern culture features portray dragons frequently, from India (which attributes to Krishna victory over Kaliya, a snake deity poisoning water), to Korea, Japan, and especially China. In China, dragons became the symbol of imperial power, perhaps not coincidentally. They have also become symbols of good luck–maybe not the image of terror–although dragon worship still exists in China.

The entire history of human culture, stretching to every inhabitable continent, seems to know what the superior of the Jesuits denies: that there is a supernatural force at work in human life, fittingly portrayed as a dragon or serpent. That may seem to play into Sosa’s claim that the devil is a symbol, but the commonality across time, location, and religion points to a reality that all human cultures have recognized. They all encountered dragons–depicted as cunning and dominating–as either a menace or a force claiming a false lordship or worship. Fr. Sosa should learn from the history of civilization: the devil exists and is our adversary, who like a roaring lion, or might we say dragon, prowls around looking for someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8). Denying his existence will only make his job easier.