[107] Eve’s serpent is represented by the lawgiver as thirsting for man’s blood, for he says in the curses pronounced on it, “He shall lie in wait for thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for his heel” (Gen. 3:15); whereas Dan’s serpent, of which we are now speaking, is represented as biting, not a man’s, but a horse’s heel.
[108] For Eve’s serpent, being, as was shewn before, a symbol of pleasure, attacks a man, namely, the reasoning faculty in each of us; for the delightful experience of abounding pleasure is the ruin of the understanding;
[109] whereas the serpent of Dan, being a figure of endurance, a most sturdy virtue, will be found to bite a horse, the symbol of passion and wickedness, inasmuch as temperance makes the overthrow and destruction of these its aim. When these have been bitten and brought to their knees, “the horseman,” he says, “shall fall.”
[110] What he conveys by a figure is this. He regards it as no worthy object of ambition for our mind to ride on any of the progeny of passion or wickedness, but, should it ever be forced to mount one of them, he considers that it is best for it to make haste to jump down and tumble off; for such falls bring the noblest victories. This explains what was meant by one of the ancients when challenged to a reviling match. He said that he would never come forward for such a contest, for in it the victor is worse than the vanquished.