A Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels: Volume II

"Jesus says (Lk 10 19 ) that He has given His
disciples ... There seems to be in these words an
allusion to Ps 91 13 , where the LXX has (90 13 )
dffirioa KO! {3a<n\tffKov frripifjoy, whereas the MT has
*lion 3 and * adder.' The Hebrew and Greek dis-
agreeing, it is not impossible that in another trans-
mission the scorpion has been substituted for one
of the terms signifying serpent. It is certainly
more natural to combine Lk 10 19 with Ps 91 13 , than
with Dt 8 15 or with Ezk 2 6 : both these texts are
more similar ad verbum, not ad sensum.

^ Another question is whether c serpents and scor-
pions ' means here animals in the proper sense of
the word (Mk 16 18 and Ac 28 3 - 6 might be quoted in
support of this interpretation), or if it is a metaphor
indicating the powers of evil. This alternative,
however, does not correspond to the notions of the
ancients, who did not, as we do, make a rigorous
distinction between terrestrial ,:!' ::;.. .->!:<-! I,,1
beings. Joh. Weiss (Schriften des JSii, ad loc. )
says rightly that an excellent illustration of this
passage of the Gospel is given in the famous
verse of Luther's hymn : ' Und wenn die Welt voll
Teufel war . . .' Moreover, we have to observe
that Kev 9 3 - 5 - 10 describe supernatural destructive
beings similar, at least partially, to scorpions.
This has to be brought into conjunction with an
antique Babylonian conception. In the epic of
Gilgarnesh (Table IX. cols, li.-iv.) we find the men-
tion of two scorpion-men, one male and the other
female, terrible * ' '. *rs of a door (cf. P.
Jensen, ' Assyr. I J . : ; und Epen 3 in KIB
vi. p. 205 If., and the same writer's Das Gilga-
mesch-Eposin der WdtliUratur^i. pp. 24r-27, 79, 93).
A. Jeremias (Izdubar-Nimrod, 1891, p. 66 f.) and
F. X. Kugler('Die Sternenfahrt des Gilgamesch,'
in Stimmen aus Maria Laach, Ixvi., 1904, p. 441 tf.)
have shown that those two celestial scorpions re-
produced in T>,'il'ylov,:j;M sculptures were the two
zodiacal fon-'i'HMtio':- Scorpio and Sagittarius.
We might also see, but less scorpion, the constellation -f ;!K V 'Uriljuo. which
was called by the ancient Greeks Ckelas/Le. the
* Claws ' of the Scorpion (cf. Ideler, Sternnamen,
pp. 174-\78).

In Christian art the scorpion received a
symbolical character, as an emblem of the anti-
Christian power. Thus a scorpion is to be seen on
the shield of a Roman soldier in B. Luini's cele- '
brated fresco, 'The Crucifixion,' in Santa Maria
degli Angeli, Lugano."

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S(c)orpion - Serpen(t) - Змея Скарапея. Только собаки не хватает, которая помогала Митре быка колоть. Смахивает на астрологию и борьбу с паганизьмом.