Dungeons & Dragons

The noun δρακων (drakon) means snake, particularly a very large one, and is a synonym of οφις (ophis), see below. In the Greek and Hebrew language basins, the snake was counted among the ερπετα (erpeta), or creeping things. In later western folklore, dragons came to be depicted as large four-footed beasts with wings, which is most likely the result of an otherwise unrecorded encounter with a dinosaur carcass (or, somewhat more daring, as remnant of a very ancient cultural memory, akin to the otherwise inexplicable phenomena of arachnophobia and regular ophidiophobia).

In the far east and the Americas, dragons are serpentine and commonly fly, and although the reason for this may not be immediately clear, the European dragon might have gotten its wings through cultural osmosis. However, in terms of natural evolution, creatures didn't spring wings because they wanted to fly but because they wanted to protect their brood, and this is the reason why angels have wings: to protect (see our article on αγγελος, aggelos, angel). Hence, ancient mythological depictions of creatures with wings are not creatures that typically fly but creatures that typically protect, which means that the winged dragon was much rather considered a protector than an attacker (see our article on δαιμονιον, daimonion, "demon").

The common Hebrew word for snake is נחש (nahash), which is also the word for copper (in Greek: χαλκος, chalkos), which links the image of the snake rather distinctively to the earliest phase of technological sophistication (also see our article on Nehushtan, the bronze serpent). Likewise, the color red signifies primitivity (hence names like Adam and the Red Sea), which explains why the great dragon of Revelation is red, fiery red even (πυρρος, purros): it signifies primitivity. The identical verb נחש (nahash) also means to divine or soothsay (to draw truths from one's intuition rather than from a basin of sophisticated and developed reason), which gives the snake a spiritual slant. Serpents were commonly associated with water (see our article on Leviathan), and so, in a way, was the προφητης (prophetes), or prophet, who indeed is associated with intuitive knowledge (rather than the logical deductions of later scientific traditions).

All this suggests that in ancient stories, the snake represents the earliest phases of mankind as a social being: a culture in which even the adults have the mental sophistication of modern toddlers, a culture that hasn't yet invented common law, or even property rights (the basis of all complex economy). Such a humanity would have been pretty much the same all over the world. Mankind's pre-speech vocalizations would have had a fantastically broad range, but would have been as wholly intuitive as that of any other animal. That means that a human from Mozambique would have been able to interact with a human from Kenya as easily and naturally as a modern dog from Mozambique is able to interact with one from Kenya.

The famous painting of Saint George (geo, from γη, ge, earth) seated on a white horse, flying a flaming red cape (Song of Solomon 2:4) whilst thrusting his lance into the dragon, is an elaborate depiction of the different layers of a human mind: with George depicting social rationality, the horse one's non-rational sentiments that can nevertheless be controlled by rationality (one's sense of beauty and kindness and such), the dragon one's basest instincts (one's lust for sex and domination), and the lance one's discipline and language.

The Bible endorses several models to the same effect, but in general, the mind comprises three levels: there is the deep dark prison of every man's private emotions (anger, angst, desire, lust), seated in the belly, where the fires of one's digestions rage in a stinky and smokey realm below: θυω I (thuo I) means to sacrifice and verb θυμιαω (thumiao) means to make smoke and ash, whereas θυω II (thuo II) means to rage or seethe (of man, the sea, horses and snakes) and noun θυμοσ (thumos) describes intense mental agitation.

If man's rational and conscious knowledge are the dry land of his mind, then his emotions are the waters. These waters are easily stirred and moved by the invisible center of gravity shared by the moon and sun — and in popular imagery this commonly links the serpent of one's anger and desires to the moon, but the moon is really only half the story, so even that is deceptive. Level two comprises the dry land of one's mind, which is solar: one's reason and rationality.

Level three is stellar, the galaxy — γαλα (gala), milk + κυκλος (kuklos), circle — which is the miraculous blending together of everybody's own private sun in a republic of language, then law, then cities. That means that the first lines of the Odessey: "Tell me, O muse, of that resourceful man wo wandered far and wide when he had sacked Troy's sacred citadel: many men's townships he saw and learned their ways of thinking ..." conveys precisely the same thing as the opening monologue of every Star Trek episode: "to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations ..."

There's no perfect paint-by-number correlation but in general and on average, the following scheme seems to work most of the time in the Bible:

Our great human κοσμος (kosmos) is essentially the result of minds blending, and since all minds have levels and these levels combine laterally, the result is the familiar image of seven heavens, seven earths and seven circles of hell. Now with the Internet it has become ever easier to make one's way into any level (although the heavens are still somewhat hard to find), but when we enter and make ourselves at home at any level, our souls take root and dig firmly in. Leaving the place requires a long process of uprooting, and that's a thing one cannot do on one's own.

The story of Saint George goes all the way back to Bellerophon and Pegasus (see our article on Corinth for more on them), which originated sometime before the Bronze Age Collapse (12th century BC). And in the first century, this familiar image was famously innovated to include a Roman soldier named Longinus (from λογχη, logche, spear-point), who, seated on a white horse and flying a flaming red cape, thrust his eponymous lance into Jesus' κοιλια (koilia). For more on spears, see our article on κυριος (kurios), mister or lord.

All through its history, mankind has excelled in wholly accidentally making the greatest discoveries (see our article on the verb αποκαλυπτω, apokalupto, to discover, hence the word Apocalypse, meaning discovery). Modern linguists have shown that our celebrated human consciousness is wholly dependent on our language, which rose like a mist from the spontaneous interactions of the masses (Genesis 2:6-7; see for the cognitive equivalent of the hydrological cycle our article on νεφελη, nephele, cloud). For eons, huge but thinly spread populations would playfully interact and imitate each other's vocalizations until some visionary few began to recognize patterns of spontaneous synchronization in all the grunting and harrumphing, and realize that with some effort, the masses could be taught to adopt specific words for specific things (see Matthew 14:19 and 26:26).

The chances are excellent that the rock paintings that were found in caves in Europe were literally conversation pieces, and served to establish what folks would call certain depicted animals (Genesis 2:19-20). As we argue in our article on the noun ποιμην (poimen), meaning shepherd, alphabetical script evolved from pictures, and even after alphabetic symbols had had their exodus, the realm of images continued to develop into art, and finally moving pictures and graphic games.

Alphabetic text trains the mind to see meaning in abstractions, which means that text literally changed mankind's mind (Ephesians 4:23). Images do that far less, and in modern times it even has become clear that while watching a movie, the brain switches to sleep mode and experiences the movie like a dream. If technology will evolve the way it has been, it appears that graphic imagery will become the medium of choice to acquire information for a large portion of mankind. Reading and writing abstract texts — and thus the skilled ability to consciously imagine one's own future — will be the prerogative of a select few, whereas the bulk of mankind will choose to be told what to believe, and trained to not imagine beyond what is offered. All this helps to explain the loquacious snake in Paradise, and the Dragon sequence of Revelation 12-13 (also see our article on χξς, ch-x-s, or 666).

Loose words developed into fluidic language, and from language came solid rules, then laws and law enforcement, then central governments by kings and tyrants, and then the birth of democracy and the hallowed republic (see our articles on παρθενος, parthenos, virgin, and ελευθερια, eleutheria, or freedom-by-law; the very purpose of the Gospel, according to Galatians 5:1). But underneath all that solid dry land of reason and sophistication, there still slithers the primitive nature of man the animal — like a serpent in the caves of the limbic system, deep beneath the cerebrum — the man who resorts intuitively to theft and murder rather than pursue the troubled collective state of lawful freedom.

Whenever mankind's institutions of trust are compromised, the great red dragon rears its ugly head and gathers the μωροι (moroi) into tribes and sics them upon whatever bastions of organized reason remain (Revelation 20:8). But the New Jerusalem will come about when all traces of primitivity have been erased (20:10), and mankind's governing structures are wholly in synch with the eternal laws of nature (21:22).

In the New Testament, our noun δρακων (drakon) is used as synonym for διαβολος (diabolos), the slanderous (hence the English word devil) and satan (Revelation 12:9), but read our article on satan for a brief brush-up on the tricky truths of monotheistic satanology.

Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, the noun δρακων (drakon) is thought to stem from the verb δερκομαι (derkomai), meaning to see (unused in the New Testament; from the PIE root "derk-", to glance or see), presumably on account of the old assumption that snakes stare their prey into submission. That means that the word δρακων (drakon) literally means "the one that sees"; not wholly unworthy of the epithet Lucifer, meaning Light-Bringer. It also brings to mind the names Beer-lahai-roi, meaning the Well Of The Living One Who Sees, and Reuben, meaning Son Of Vision.

It also reminds that Eve "saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes" (Genesis 3:6), and that Jesus specifically warned against one's own deceiving eye (Matthew 18:9). Particularly also since Biblical snakes are usually aquatic, also have a look at our article on the verb σκανδαλιζω (skandalizo), to night-fish or hoodwink.

Alternatively, here at Abarim Publications we surmise that our word δρακων (drakon) may have been helped into existence by its proximity to the Hebrew noun דרך (derek), meaning road or way (in Greek: οδος, hodos), from the verb דרך (darak), to step on. The Greek alphabet was adapted from the Phoenician one, and came with a slew of handy terms which may have included the idea that snakes and roads are associated — as demonstrated by statements like "Dan shall be a serpent in the way" (Genesis 49:17). The reason why people rode donkeys was not because that's so convenient but so that a disturbed snake would bite the animal rather than the human. Note the wordplay in John 12:14, as οναριον (onarion) means foal of a donkey, whereas noun οναρ (onar) means dream.

Our noun δρακων (drakon) is used 13 times; see full concordance.

The noun δακρυον (dakruon) means tear (a drop of liquid from one's eye), or anything that drops like a tear (like tree sap). It stems from an ancient Proto-Indo-European word for tear, which in turn comes from the PIE words for eye and the same verb meaning to see that became the Greek verb δερκομαι (derkomai), to see, and thus the noun δρακων (drakon), meaning snake (see above). This swapping of the letters d-r-k into d-k-r is called metathesis and is a familiar albeit not completely explained phenomenon in linguistics. Below, we will see another instance of metathesis.

The link between tears and snakes or dragons is rather obvious: dirt in one's eye obstructs one's vision as much as any folly or lie does one's mental vision, and grief and trauma causes one's eyes to water and one's mind to be overcome as much as snake poison would do one's body.

The eye is one of several water wells that the body is equipped with, so as to remove absorbed contaminants: urine, sweat and spit have the same function. Urine comes along with any excess of imbibed fluid. Sweat also removes excess of body heat. Spit also removes dirt or bad-tasting food from one's mouth and often rides a barrage of words from an upset mind. And tears accompany a quietly troubled heart — English doesn't make the distinction, but weeping and wailing is a vocal exercise, whereas "tearing" is an optical or cardiac exercise. Wailing is loud but tear-shedding is quiet.

The Hebrew word for fountain or well is עין ('ayin), which is also the word for eye. This, curiously, suggests that to the Hebrews, the eye was primarily an organ that waters and only secondly an organ that sees. But the profundity goes further. A heart that is incapable of feeling contrition, indignation or quiet grief (and so to contemplate a means to escape or better one's situation) is also incapable of setting an eye to water. That means that even though animals have eyes to see with, they don't have hearts that cry: their wells are dry — and see our article on φρεαρ (phrear), well, for a lengthy look at all this.

The Hebrew verb נהר (nahar) means both to shine (what a lamp does) and to flow (what a river does), which means that when Jesus says that the eye is the lamp of the body (Matthew 6:22), he is referring to the eye's function of watering and flushing the heart clean of grief, rather than its function of seeing. Tears flow when one's situation is not according to one's wish, which demonstrates a powerlessness to adjust either. Mastery of the law results in a freedom that exceeds the righteousness of the law (see our aforementioned article on ελευθερια, eleutheria, or freedom-by-law), which in turn results in eyes that don't shed tears (Revelation 21:4).

Our noun δακρυον (dakruon), tear, is used 11 times in the New Testament, see full concordance, and from it derives:

The noun εχιδνα (echidna), viper, is one of two common Greek words for serpent — the other being οφις (ophis), serpent, see below. It's not wholly clear where the word εχιδνα (echidna) comes from or how it differs from οφις (ophis), or even if it does (Matthew 23:33), but the latter is more commonly equated with δρακων (drakon), dragon, see above, which suggests that the οφις (ophis) was known for its formidable size and bold appearance, whereas the εχιδνα (echidna) for its smaller size and sneaky or stealthily attack. In the classics the noun εχιδνα (echidna) was proverbial for deceitful and treacherous people. It's used 5 times; see full concordance

The noun οφις (ophis), serpent, is the more common Greek word for snake, and the one most commonly equated with δρακων (drakon), dragon (see above). The word itself stems from a widely attested Proto-Indo-European root "hogis-", but its formation might have been helped along by its associative proximity to the verb οπτομαι (optomai), to gaze at, and the noun ωψ (ops), eye (as δρακων, drakon, relates to δερκομαι, derkomai, to see).

The noun οφις (ophis) describes a semi-aquatic creature that could proverbially pass for a fish — ιχθυς (ichtus) — as much as a stone could pass for a bread (Matthew 7:9-10, Luke 11:1).

The οφις (ophis) was also — rather surprisingly in a biological sense but not when we consider what happened to Eve (2 Corinthians 11:3) — regarded to be φρονιμος (phronimos), or "prone to cast feelings very precisely into words, definitions, schemas and types, to serve as the building elements of much larger constructions", as we put it in our article on that particular adjective (Matthew 10:16). Serpents could be poisonous or constrictive, in either case dangerous to handle of step on (Mark 16:18, Luke 10:19, John 3:14).

This noun οφις (ophis), serpent, is used 14 times; see full concordance.

The noun ασπις (aspis) describes a species of snake, specifically the Egyptian cobra: a fatally venomous serpent of about 1.5 meter long and endowed with the signature "hood" that may have inspired the royal Egyptian headdress called nemes or nemyss (other guesses to the origin of the nemes include the manes of a lion and the rays of the sun; also note the similarity with the word nemesis, from the Greek verb νεμω, nemo, to divide and dispense). This serpent symbolized Egyptian royalty, which is probably an important aspect of its symbolical usage in the New Testament.

Our word occurs only once, in Romans 3:13, where Paul combines Psalm 5:9 and 104:3 and writes: "Their throat is an open grave. With their tongues they have used deceit. The poison of asps is under their lips".

In the above quote, our Greek noun ασπις (aspis) translates the Hebrew noun עכשוב ('akshub), cobra or asp, which occurs in Psalm 104:3 only. This word appears to be a playful variant of the noun עכביש ('akabish), which means spider or tarantula (Job 8:14 and Isaiah 59:5 only) or עכבר ('akbor), meaning mouse (Leviticus 11:29, 1 Samuel 6:4-18, Isaiah 66:17 only). This is possibly significant because this wordplay involving metathesis may have our noun ασπις (aspis), asp, point to the difficult word αψινθος (apsinthos), wormwood. Note that the Greek word for mouse, namely μυς (mus), relates closely to the noun μυστηριον (musterion), mystery, as both stem from the verb μυω (muo), to shut or cover or be hidden just below the surface.

The origin of our word ασπις (aspis), asp, is disputed but one candidate is a poorly attested Proto-Indo-European root "hesp-", to cut, hence the Latin asper meaning harsh, rude or sharp. What is not disputed is that our noun ασπις (aspis), asp, is identical to the noun ασπις (aspis), meaning shield (of a soldier's armor). This word does not occur in the New Testament but it does occur all over the classics, descriptive of one single shield or figuratively of an entire military division of shield-carrying soldiers. The Greek language is full of military expressions that use our word for shield to count men: twelve "shields" in a row, or five "shields" deep into a cluster of them. A command to move shield-ward meant to the left, as shields were carried in the left hand (and see our article on why right is good and left is bad).

Shields were not only used to hide behind (and in formation, the guy next to you hid behind your shield), but also to hide one's assault weapon (whether sword, dagger, club or flail), so as to not give the opponent a chance to appropriately brace for an associated kind of attack. All this obviously corresponds to the image of the snake, spider or mouse that lies in wait just beneath the surface. As mentioned above, people began riding donkeys so that any creature burrowed in the road would bite the animal rather than the human. The word for donkey is ονος (onos), its foal is called οναριον (onarion), whereas the word for dream is οναρ (onar). Note that there are a whopping five dream sequences between Joseph's conversation with the angel of the Lord (Matthew 1:20) and the warning against Archelaus that had the holy family end up in Galilee (Matthew 2:22).

Where this second noun ασπις (aspis), meaning shield, comes from is again a mystery, but a shield is not harsh, rude or sharp, so if the word for asp indeed comes from the PIE root "hesp-", then the word for shield should be considered a wholly separate word, and only accidentally identical. Some think it has to do with a mystery verb σπιζω (spizo), which isn't extant beyond a derived adjective σπιδης (spides), which occurs only once, namely in Iliad.11.754, as modifier of πεδιον (pedion), plain, from πεδον (pedon), ground, from πους (pous), foot. The adjective is then thought to mean "very broad" and a shield consequently "not very broad". That seems a bit of a stretch. A word that jumps more readily to mind is the (equally unrelated) adjective ασπιλος (aspilos), meaning stainless or spotless.

Here at Abarim Publications we don't know either, of course, but we do suspect that the above quote by Paul incorporates an unusually complex wordplay, even for Paul. As we noted above, many Greek words are not Greek at all and were imported along with the alphabet, from the Phoenicians. A word that pops into our collective mind is the noun שפיפן (shepipon), which also denotes a sort of snake. This word occurs in Genesis 49:17 only, which reads "Dan shall be a serpent in the way, a horned snake in the path" (translators evidently take their inspiration from the Latin asper).

Ways and paths are not exactly broad plains, but the Hebrew word for stepping on is דרך (darak), hence the noun דרך (derek), path, which, as noted above, is suspiciously similar to δρακων (drakon), meaning snake. That said, the word for path, namely ארח (arach) looks suspiciously similar to αραχνη (arachne), spider (hence the word "arachnid"). That's not to suggest that the adjective σπιδης (spides) has anything to do with the English word "spider", but we do suggest that our noun שפיפן (shepipon), snake, is part of a huge cluster of words that have to do with border regions or protective rims (like a porch around a house), which brings to mind a spider within its wider web, or the head of a cobra within its wider hood. Strikingly, the word סוף (sup) means reed or papyrus, as in Yam-sup or Sea of Reeds.

Note that the letters Φ (Phi) and Ψ (Psi) are shaped according to the principle of a large hedge, porch, web or hood around a nucleic house, spider or cobra's head. These letters are adaptations of the Phoenician/Hebrew letter ק (qoph), meaning head, which may have helped form the word κοφινος (kophinos), basket; see our article on כפף (kapap), to bend or curve.