Note 6 — Chapter VI · EARLY BOOK-MAKING

The “Revelation of John the Theologian” is also, in respect of much of its matter, pre-gospel, and even in its later elements independent of the gospels. It is noteworthy that the latest professional criticism has after infinite fumbling come (without acknowledging him) to the view of Dupuis that the episode of the woman and the child and the dragon belong to sun-myth;6 and the exegetes would probably save themselves a good deal of further guessing by contemplating Dupuis’s solution that the special details are simply derived from an ancient planisphere or fuller zodiac, in which the woman and the dragon and the hydra are prominent figures.7 It is in any case particularly important to realize that this palpably mythical conception of a Jesus Christ, figured as “the Lamb,” evidently with a zodiacal reference, is found in one of the earliest documents of the cult, outside of the gospels.