In memory of this new incarnation, the 25th of December, otherwise Christmas Day, was, as we have already seen, celebrated in Pagan Rome as "Natalis Solis invicti," "the birth-day of the Unconquered Sun." We have equally seen that the very name of the Roman god of war is just the name of Nimrod; for Mars and Mavors, the two well-known names of the Roman war-god, are evidently just the Roman forms of the Chaldee "Mar" or "Mavor," the Rebel. Thus terrible and invincible was Nimrod when he reappeared as Dagon, the beast from the sea. If the reader looks at what is said in Revelation 13:3, he will see precisely the same thing: "And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded unto death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast. And they worshipped the dragon, which gave power unto the beast, and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?" Such, in all respects, is the analogy between the language of the prophecy and the ancient Babylonian type. Do we find, then, anything corresponding to this in the religious history of the Roman empire after the fall of the old Paganism of that empire? Exactly in every respect. No sooner was Paganism legally abolished, the eternal fire of Vesta extinguished, and the old serpent cast down from the seat of power, where so long he had sat secure, than he tried the most vigorous means to regain his influence and authority. Finding that persecution of Christianity, as such, in the meantime would not do to destroy the church symbolised by the sun-clothed Woman, he made another tack (Rev 12:15): "And the serpent cast out of his mouth a flood of water after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood." The symbol here is certainly very remarkable. If this was the dragon of fire, it might have been expected that it would have been represented, according to popular myths, as vomiting fire after the woman. But it is not so. It was a flood of water that he cast out of his mouth. What could this mean? As the water came out of the mouth of the dragon--that must mean doctrine, and of course, false doctrine. But is there nothing more specific than this? A single glance at the old Babylonian type will show that the water cast out of the mouth of the serpent must be the water of baptismal regeneration. Now, it was precisely at this time, when the old Paganism was suppressed, that the doctrine of regenerating men by baptism, which had been working in the Christian Church before, threatened to spread like a deluge over the face of the Roman empire. *
* From about AD 360, to the time of the Emperor Justinian, about 550, we have evidence both of the promulgation of this doctrine, and also of the deep hold it came at last to take of professing Christians.