(urth) Claw = Fang?

[Daniel Petersen]

>From a conversation a few years ago with a theologian who knew the original
languages of the Bible, I gather that Satan may have been in the angelic
order of a seraph and a seraph is in the form of a winged serpent (dragon).
 Thus, the serpent cursed to crawl on his belly is a de-winged dragon.  But
it doesn't sound like their are claws to speak of on these flying-serpent
'dragons'.  But Satan is referred to as a dragon in the book of Revelation
in the New Testament and that depicition sounds to me somehow more like the
traditional dragon we usually think of - i.e. with legs... and claws.  So
perhaps by this route you have your Genesis-based dragon claw.

But like Jesus lifted up just as the bronze serpent was lifted up in the
desert to heal the Israelites, and like Jesus wore a crown of thorns just
as man is cursed to work the thorny ground for food, so too Jesus could be
said to have suffered the dragon's claw on the cross in order to free
mankind from the grip of that very claw.

One more thing:  lions have claws and both Satan and Jesus are likened to a
lion in the New Testament.  The Claw, then, seems to draw consistently on
images that are biblically employed for both curse/evil/satan and
blessing/good/messiah.  And I think the Claw's symbolism mingles these two
opposed uses to simultaneously represent the ironic defeat of the former
and the subversive triumph of the latter...  (I think this ties in well
with elements of the theology of the Outsider also.)

-DOJP

On Thu, Nov 22, 2012 at 9:54 PM, David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>wrote:

>
> On 11/22/2012 3:49 PM, Jerry Friedman wrote:
>
>> From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
>> Very well thought out! If the thorn is the key to the meaning of the
>> Claw, and fangs do seem to occupy a space adjacent to thorns, they are
>> therefore a link to the Claw.
>>
>>> It occurs to me that the Claw is not associated with any animal, even by
>>> speculation. One thinks of a bird, especially a bird of prey, but this is
>>> not supported at all.
>>>
>> ...
>>
>> In fact it's rejected.
>>
>> "(Because the Conciliator is given a Claw, one is tempted to make the
>> easy association of the eagle of Jove with the sun; it is perhaps too pat.)"
>>
>> CotC, Appendix
>>
>> Jerry Friedman
>>
>
> Yes, of course. "Perhaps too pat" indeed. It all but instructs us to look
> elsewhere, doesn't it? Away from the pagan and toward Genesis, maybe.
>
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