have disappeared from
earth; but the Hunnish King now claimed to have received it by special
revelation. It was said that a herdsman, who was tracking in the desert
a wounded heifer by the drops of blood, found the mysterious sword
standing fixed in the ground, as if it had darted down from heaven. The
herdsman bore it to Attila, who thenceforth was believed by the Huns to
wield the Spirit of Death in battle, and their seers prophesied that
that sword was to destroy the world. A Roman, who was on an embassy to
the Hunnish camp, recorded in his memoirs Attila's acquisition of this
supernatural weapon, and the immense influence over the minds of the
barbaric tribes which its possession gave him. In the title which he
assumed we shall see the skill with which he availed himself of the
legends and creeds of other nations as well as of his own. He designated
himself "ATTILA, Descendant of the Great Nimrod. Nurtured in Engaddi. By
the grace of God, King of the Huns, the Goths, the Danes, and the Medes.
The Dread of the World."

Herbert states that Attila is represented on an old medallion with a
teraph, or a head, on his breast; and the same writer adds: "We know,
from the _Hamartigenea_ of Prudentius, that Nimrod, with a snaky-haired
head, was the object of adoration of the heretical followers of Marcion;
and the same head was the palladium set up by Antiochus Epiphanes over
the gates of Antioch, though it has been called the visage of Charon.
The memory of Nimrod was certainly regarded with mystic veneration by
many; and by asserting himself to be the heir of that mighty hunter
before the Lord, he vindicated to himself at least the whole Babylonian
kingdom.

"The singular assertion in his style, that he was nurtured in Engaddi,
where he certainly had never been, will be more easily understood on
reference to the twelfth chapter of the Book of Revelation, concerning
the woman clothed with the sun, who was to bring forth in the
wilderness--'where she hath a place prepared of God'--a man-child, who
was to contend with the dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and
rule all nations with a rod of iron. This prophecy was at that time
understood universally by the sincere Christians to refer to the birth
of Constantine, who was to overwhelm the paganism of the city on the
seven hills, and it is still so explained; but it is evident that the
heathens must have looked on it in a different light, and have regarded
it as a foretel