ed into a conflict between Christ and
Satan. M. Clermont-Ganneau has described an interesting bas-relief in
the Louvre in which a hawk-headed St. George, clad in Roman military
uniform and mounted on a horse, is slaying a dragon which is represented
by Set's crocodile.[233] But the Biblical references to Satan leave no
doubt as to his identity with the dragon, who is specifically mentioned
in the Book of Revelations as "the old serpent which is the Devil and
Satan" (xx. 2).

The devil Set was symbolic of disorder and darkness, while the god
Osiris was the maintainer of order and the giver of light. Although the
moon-god, in the form of Osiris, Thoth and other deities, thus came to
acquire the moral attributes of a just judge, who regulated the
movements of the celestial bodies, controlled the waters upon the earth,
and was responsible for the maintenance of order in the Universe, the
ethical aspect of his functions was in large measure disguised by the
material importance of his duties. In Babylonia similar views were held
with respect to the beneficent water-god Ea, who was the giver of
civilization, order and justice, and Sin, the moon-god, who "had
attained a high position in the Babylonian pantheon," as "the guide of
the stars and the planets, the overseer of the world at night". "From
that conception a god of high moral character soon developed." "He is an
extremely beneficent deity, he is a king, he is the ruler of men, he
produces order and stability, like Shamash and like the Indian Varuna
and Mitra, but besides that, he is also a judge, he loosens the bonds of
the imprisoned, like Varuna. His light, like that of Varuna, is
the symbol of righteousness.... Like the Indian Varuna and the
Iranian Mazdah, he is a god of wisdom."

When these Egyptian and Babylonian ideas were borrowed by the Aryans,
and the Iranian Mazdah and the Indian Varuna assumed the role of the
beneficent deity of the former more ancient civilizations, the material
aspect of the functions of the moon-god became less obtrusive; and there
gradually emerged the conception, to which Zarathushtra first gave
concrete expression, of the beneficent god Ahura Mazdah as "an
omniscient protector of morality and creator of marvellous power and
knowledge". "He is the most-knowing one, and the most-seeing one. No one
can deceive him. He watches with radiant eyes everything that is done in
open or in secret." "Although he has a strong personality he has no