DracontiiiB, a Spanish priest, lived iboflt&rjv 460. He is the author of a poem describiag di b- tory of the six days of creation (Feaxmena. « f« sex dierum). In its original fonn tb» poen ^'^ verses, and is foUowed by an elegy addrwedbr emperor Theodosius the Younger, coontiB; d * verses. In the 7th century, bishop Esga dW revised the poem, and add«d a descriptkB e^tk «^ enth day. In this new shape the Batae^' rather Heptsemeron, contains 634 xenet. 7k x?- inal poem of Dracontius was publitlMd ia FiUca Corpus chrisL Poetarum (Basel, 1564), isd vik 3» by Weita, at Frankfort (1610); also in tbeMofuB^i Patrttm, vol. vi, and in the Bibl. iVrfrwi, ToLti A revised and enlarged by bishop Eugea, it bi b« published by Rivin (Leipe, 1651), Arerili(B(W I"' Carpzov (Hehnstadt, 1794X m the BWotkua Har^ Patrvm, vol. ix.->Hoefer, Nowb, Bioy, Gmk.^--
Draeseke,JoHANN HeiwbichBbkjhato.*^ the most brilliant and popular of njodera pceaek* i Germany. Bom at Brunswick, Jan. 18, ITTi ^^ educated at Helmstadt, where he vas gn*^ ^ enced by Hcnke, and devoted himself to ti« k™*' istic literature then prevalent, espeeiallT totbei^ In 1804 he became pastor at RatxebnrfetwliBl'^^ Bremen. His patriotic labors during the S*?^^ wars gave him great reputation, and his gnaifs- talent spread his name far and wide. In 18S *• "* ceeded Westermeier as bishop of the proriDrt d^ ony. He died at Potsdam Dec. 8,1849. Hi#F* sermons are very numerous. The ^^^*^/\ tionalistic, the later more orthodox »nd fidlw^^
.^ g. The most celebrated of them ire^
' It r? At * -*^A- ^-\dig(enJurdefiiendeVerehrerJem,o{^^^^^\^
universal in Europe, and hi a great part of Asia. The | ^^^^i^ that of 1836, 2 vols, edited by bis sm. ^
drachms of these talents weigh respectively, during the period of the Maccabees, about 55 grs. Th)y, 58*5, and 66 (see De Rom6 de Tide, Metrologie, Paris, 1789, p. 81 sq.). The drachms mentioned in 2 Mace, are probably of the Seleucidn, and therefore of the Attic stondard ; but in Luke denarii seems to be intended, for the Attic drachma had been at that time reduced
published also Glaube^ Liebe, BaffinMg {^ «^^* Deutschland's Wiederyebnrt (2d edit lfl»); ^■ ausd,ffeiLSchnJi{iyo\s,im-^). Hi'^^«** sene Predigten appeared at Magdeburg; 1«W (. r.» See Salutes, History of RationaHtah <^^ ^ Drag (n'?^3?, mikme'retk, Heb. i, 15, !«= *
DRAGON
883 DRAGON, ORDER OF THE
i3«, mikmo'^retk, Isa. xix, 8, ** net"), a <««« or dg-net. See Fish ; Net.
ragon (from the Greek SpaKuVy as In the Apoo- la and Rev. frequently), an imaginary serpent of luity, especially in mythology, supposed to be sup- l with feet and often with wings, stands in our ion usaally as a translation of two Heb. words of irent signification, but common derivation — tan^ and tannin^f "pStn (according to Gesenius, from , to extend, with reference to the great length of or both of them). The similarity of the forms of words may easily account for this confusion, espe- [y MB the masculine plural of the former, iaanimj tally assomes (in Lam. iv, d) the form tannmj and, ;he other hand, itmnim Is evidently written for the ^lar tcmniu in £zek. xjdx, 3 ; zxxii, 2. But the rds appear, to be quite distinct in meaning ; and the inction is generally, though not universally, pre- p-ed by the Sept. Bochart, however, proposes {Hie- . ii, 429) to read uniformly tannin as the plur. of , and thus merge both terms into one. See Whalb. . The former (always "dragon" except Ezek. xxxii, * whale") is used, iilways in the plnnd, in Job xxx, ; Isa. xxxiv, 18; xliii, 20 (Sept. tnipijvei); in Isa. i, 22 (fxt^'oO ; in Jor. x, 22 ; xUx, 88 (arpov^oi) ; in a. xliv, 19 (r<5fl'y KOKWffeufs) ; and in Jer. ix, 11 , ^, 6 ; li, 87 ; Mic i, 8 (SpaKovrto). The feminine iral riSPI, Umnoty, is found in Mai. i, 8 ; a passage x>gether differently translated by the Sept. It is vays applied to some creatures inhabiting the des- t, and connected generally with the words ns:?*^ ostrich") and "^K ("jackal"?). We should con^ ide from this that it refers rather to some wild beast an to a serpent, and this conclusion is rendered al- ost certain by the comparison of the ta$mim in Jer. V, 6, to the wild asses snuffing the wind, and the ref- ence to their ** wailing" in Mic. i, 8, and perhaps in >b xxx, 29. The Syriao renders it by a word which, ;cording to Pococke, means a "jackal" (a beast whose iculiarly moomful howl in the desert is well known), id it seems most probable that this or some cog- ftte species is to be understood whenever the word HI occurs. This interpretation, however, although ivored by the grammatical forms, is supported by lit- e more than conjecture as to the identificatioB with tie jcukal, or wild dog of the desert, which the Arabs all awl, plur. awin (corresponding to the Hebrew K, D-i^K, *' wild beasts of the islands," Isa. xiii, 22; :xxiv, 13 ; Jer. 1, 39, i. e. jackals)^ so called from their owUng; although they call the wolfhy the name tay- <m, which is somewhat like V?^« ^^ Jackal.
2. The word tanmn% T^SQ (piur. d^'psri), b always endered by SpaKuw in the Sept. except in Gen. i, 21, vhere we find Ktjrog, It generally occurs in the plu- »1, and is rendered "whale" in Gen. i, 21 ; Job vii, 12; "serpent" in Exod. vii, 9-12; "sea-monster" in Lam. iv, 8. It seems to refer to any great monster, Rrbether of the land or the sea, being indeed more usu- iily applied to some kind of serpent or reptile, but not exclusively restricted to that sense. When referring to the sea It is used as a parallel to injl^ ("levia- than"), as in Isa. xxvii, 1 ; and indeed this latter word is rendered in the Sept. by Spaxtav, in Psa. Ixxiv, 14 ; dv, 26 ; Job xl, 20 ; Isa. xxvii, 1 ; and by fiiya Krjrog m Job iii, 8. When we examine special passages we find the word used in Gen. i, 21, of the great sea-mon- aters, the representatives of the inhabitants of the deep. The same sense is given to it in Psa. Ixxiv, 18 (where it is again connected with "leviathan"), Psa. «dviii, 7, and probably in Job vii, 12 (Vulg. ceftw). On the other hand, in Exod. vii, 9, 10, 12 ; Deut xxxii, 33 ; Psa. xci, 18, it refers to land-serpents of a power- ful and deadly kind. It is also applied metaphorically