A Compare And Contrast Essay On Dragon And Religion

Now, though dragons have been attributed with various stories of the origin of the world, they’ve also been most prominent in various religions, particularly in Christianity, portrayed as beings of worship and damned; a god or the devil. In Christian myth, dragons are a representation of Satan himself. This was used as a method to convert people in to Christianity; in fear of the terrifying dragon, saints and knights slayed them in a symbolism, to defeat evil and give hope to the people that their religion was the way to combat this threat. A perfect example of this would be the famous story of how Saint George slew the hideous dragon and by doing so converted the whole town. The story goes that St. George travel the land to spread Christianity,
in his journey he comes up in a town called Silene; here people are suffering do to a dragon eating their livestock, and worse of all their children. The king of Silene begged St. George to defeat the dragon, in defense that his daughter was next in line to be sacrifice to the greedy dragon. It was then that George mounted his horse and with his blessed lance, shield, and armor, fought the dragon.
Before the dragon struck, the saint made the sign of the cross, hoisted his lance, and charged at the dragon. Piercing the creature’s scaly breast, St. George was able to defeat the dragon and save the life of the princess and the future of Silene. Thus preaching that it was Christ himself who freed the town and by killing the dragon, the people of Silene would convert into Christianity. Centauries later the Church named him a saint. In the book, Creating Dragons by Sean Brand & Ivan Hissey (2009), it is mentioned that in the Bible, the equivalent of Saint George is Saint Michael, the archangel who led the army of heaven in the fight against the dragon in the book of Revelation. This is found in Revelation 12:7 and 12: 9; “And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back.’ The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to earth, and his angels with him.” Dragons here became an obstacle for man to reach divinity and the enlightenment of God. By creating this, the dragon in the bible is an atrocity to mankind; such that it is repelled at all times and considered as the embodiment of evil
itself. There’s also more mention of dragon in the bible, the Leviathan in Job 41: 1, 41: 2, 41:14-20; “Can you pull in the leviathan with a fishhook or tie down his tongue with a rope? Can you put a cord through his nose or pierce his jaw with a hook? Who dares open the doors of his mouth, ringed about with his fearsome teeth? His back has rows of shields tightly sealed together… Firebrands stream from his mouth; spark of fire shoot out. Smoke pours from his nostrils as from a boiling pot over a fire of reeds.” This whole chapter describes the Leviathan, which is a serpentine monster that terrorized sailors and fishermen. In Job, scientists believe that what the people were describing was a giant crocodile, native to area. Crocodiles are apex predator, meaning this creature can take down any animal within range; being an ambush predator, crocodiles have one of the most powerful bites in the animal kingdom, they are also incredible swimmers, able to swim 18 mph or even faster. With its power and physical appearances, crocodile could have been easily seen as a dragon, because of its aggressive nature and reputation, crocodile were seen as a monster with the desire to torment mankind. Making it simple to enhance the image of the dragon into a creature that is out to get men, be it as a force of nature, animal or man’s conquest.