At left is The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun, a painting by William Blake.[Image from the Wikipedia 'The Great Red Dragon Paintings' page, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.] It is an image of this painting that Francis Dollarhyde shows to Freddy Lounds during their 'session' together (as shown above). However, Dollarhyde incorrectly refers to it as "The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in the Rays of the Sun", which is a different Blake painting (the one shown in part 12 of this analysis).[a]
The painting shown above is cataloged in the National Gallery of Art (in Washington, D.C.) under The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun: "the Devil is Come Down." It refers to Revelation 12 verses 12-17, and depicts events after the second downfall of Satan. Swedenborg's correspondence for Rev. 12:12-17 is given in his Apocalypse Explained (in n. 751 through n. 770). First, the biblical verses themselves:
12. For this rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to those that inhabit the earth and the sea, for the devil is come down unto you, having great anger, knowing that he hath but a short time. 13. And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman that brought forth the son. 14. And there were given to the woman two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness into her place, where she is nourished a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent. 15. And the serpent cast out after the woman out of his mouth water as a river, that he might cause her to be swallowed up by the river. 16. And the earth helped the woman; and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the river, which the dragon cast out of his mouth. 17. And the dragon was angry against the woman, and went away to make war with the rest of her seed, who keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. (--from A.E. n. 704.)
Now, part of the correspondence:
For the devil is come down unto you, signifies because they receive evils from hell. This is evident from the signification of "devil," as being the hell from which come evils; also from the signification of "coming down unto them," as being, in reference to the devil, to be among them, to lead them astray, and to be received by them. Those unto whom the devil came down mean "those that inhabit the earth and the sea," and these signify the merely natural and sensual who have become such because they have rejected the life of faith, which is called charity; and those who reject this from religion, and who believe and say in their heart that what they do contributes nothing to salvation, but faith alone and piety in worship are what save, such continue natural, and even become sensual so far as they reject goods in act or deeds, and give themselves up to the pleasures that spring from the loves of self and of the world. Because such continue natural and even become sensual, they receive with delight the evils that rise up out of hell; for the natural man is in those evils from birth, and unless he becomes also spiritual he continues in them; for when man becomes spiritual he has communion with the heavens, and receives goods therefrom, and goods received from the Lord through heaven remove evils, which is effected solely by means of a life according to the commandments from the Word. (--from A.E. n. 753.)
a. The painting shown in part 12 of this analysis (shown again below for the reader's convenience), is cataloged in the Brooklyn Museum (in New York) as The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun. It is oftentimes called The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun, and is also sometimes called "The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in the Rays of the Sun."
To skip over the remainder of the Swedenborgian analysis of the Hannibal Lecter movies, click here.
The works of Emanuel Swedenborg from the Internet Sacred Texts Archive
Apocalypse Explained, by Emanuel Swedenborg, [1757-9], tr. by John Whitehead [1911], at sacred-texts.com. Web. 6 Jun. 2010.
