The Arma Christi [General discussion]

[Koen G]

I moved on to Revelation now. I don't know if you've actually ever read the Bible book, but it's one of the most convoluted and confusing pieces of fiction ever written. Anyway, my suspicion that Revelation is involved is becoming more concrete.

First I discussed You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. as the "first Beast of Revelation", which was often depicted in Medieval works as one of the more popular Biblical monsters. Since I needed a lot of pictures I did this in a You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..

Meanwhile, I was starting to suspect that You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. might represent the Dragon from Revelation, which appears before the first Beast, pulls stars from the sky and helps it perform its evil deeds. So their order in the MS, with just a few folios in between and both Currier B, would be acceptable.

   

You'll notice about You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. that it looks entirely unnatural. The leaves are twisted to one side, and on the other side grow flowers, as well as on top. The root is long and serpentine.

The dragon has seven heads, and when he first appeared, "his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth".
Here's an illustration of this event from MS You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.:



It's oriented a bit strangely, with the stars below, but if I rotate it, the parallel becomes clear:

   


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Since these scenes come from the same Bible book (with idiosyncratic writing) and share themes (beast appearing, seven heads, crowns...), and both monsters even appear together in the same scene, I thought this would make for a perfect first test for vocabulary matches. I used Nablator's normalized sheet for Currier B, and sorted first f34v, the "beast" folio. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (dragon) was the 6th best match out of 32 folios.

Then I sorted by You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (dragon). It doesn't get great matches with any folio, apart from one: f34v.