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MISCELLANEOUS OBSERVATIONS

ON THE

SERPENT.

MR Bryant, in his Antient Mythology, vol. i. p. 490, says, " it would be a noble undertaking, and very edifying in its consequences, if some person of true learning and deep insight into antiquity would go through with the history of the Serpent;" and, for this purpose, he refers to Vossius, Selden, &c. but particularly to Philip Olearius de Ophiolatria, and to Joh. Koch's Dissertatio. Theologica et Historica de cultu Serpentum. After the strictest research, I have never been able to get a sight of either of these two authors; but, as I cannot but think that the worship of the Serpent was a very early species of idolatry, I shall select such passages from my narrow reading as may tend to confirm this opinion. Let it then be previously observed, that Ob, Ophis, Python, and most probably Thoth, or Theuth, were originally names of the Serpent, as a deity, and not merely as the emblem of the Sun. For, Mr Bryant, who himself supposes that Thoth was the supreme god in Egypt, says, p. 479, that Sanchoniathon makes mention of a history which he once wrote on the worship of the Serpent. The title of this work was, according to Eusebius, Ethothion or Ethothia. These words he imagines to be mistaken for Ath Ophion, a title which more immediately related to that worship of which the writer treated. But, if Thoth, the chief god of Egypt, was a Serpent, this accounts for the name of Ethothion; and, besides the many reasons, in consequence of the fall, which might give rise to the worship of the Serpent, there seems to be no kind of propriety in adopting this beast for an emblem of the Sun. And the sacrifices, which were offered to this deity, accord better with a notion of the Serpent than the Sun, as he observes, from Lucan," et quibus immitis placatur sanguine diro;" i. e. Theutalis, or Theutait.

And, now, to produce other authorities, which he has made use of, to shew the antient worship of the Serpent. P. 47. "Oph signifies Serpent. It was an emblem of the Sun, and also of time

and eternity. It was worshipped as a deity, and esteemed the same as Osiris or as Vulcan. The deity so denominated was esteemed prophetic, and his temples were applied to as oracular." Might not this arise from that part of the Mosaic account of the fall, where he says to Eve, “ye shall be as gods?" &c.

"This idolatry is alluded to by Moses, Lev. xx. 27, which shews that it was of great antiquity, and it is remarkable, that, wherever the Amonians founded any places of worship, and introduced their rites, there was generally some story of a Serpent." How came the Serpent to be so remarkably distinguished if not from the history of the fall, which must be well known to the race. of Ham, or the Amonians?

"The woman at Endor, who had a familiar spirit, is called 18, Ob, and it is interpreted Py thonissa. And Kircher says that Obion is still, among the people of Egypt, the name of a Serpent." P. 421, "It is said of Jotham, king of Israel, that, on the wall of Ophel, he built much. Ophel is literally Pytho Sol, the Ophite deity of Egypt and Canaan." The literal sense of Ophel is, rather, the Serpent-god.

P. 473. "As mankind are said to have been ruined through the influence of this being, we could little expect that it would, of all other objects, have been adopted as the most sacred and salutary symbol, and rendered the chief object of adoration; yet, so we find it to have been. In most of the antient rites there is some allusion to the Serpent. I have taken notice, that, in the orgies of Bacchus, the persons who partook of the ceremony used to carry serpents in their hands, and with horrid screams call upon Eva, Eva." See, also, plagues of Egypt, p. 233.

Might not the worship of the Serpent arise from the principle of fear, as Livy informs us, "averruncandæ deum iræ victimas cædi;" and do not these ceremonies of Bacchus indicate as much? In the word Eva there is a manifest allusion to the fall, and from what but this could the worship of the Serpent have taken its rise? This, as Mr Bryant observes, was the opinion of Epiphanius and Clemens of Alexandria. See, also, Potter's Clemens Alexand. vol. i. p. 11.

P. 478. "In the Octateuch of Ostanes it is said, "that, in Persis and other parts of the East, they erected temples to the Serpent-tribe, and held festivals to their honour, esteeming them the supreme of all gods and the superintendants of the whole world. The worship began among the people of Chaldea. They built the city Opis upon the Tigris, and were greatly addicted to divination and the worship of the Serpent."

Does not this again seem to arise from the relation of the fall, where the Serpent is called the most subtle of all the beasts? And might not this circumstance be handed down by tradition? For, that the Serpent was not addressed to as a sálutary being may be inferred from the cruel rites practised by the Cyclops, who were originally Ophite and worshipped the Serpent; and they seem

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to have been founded on the tradition of the Serpent's being instrumental to the destruction of mankind." See p. 493, &c.

P. 489. Mr Bryant calls the worship of the Serpent, primitive idolatry, and farther says, "it may seem strange, that, in the first ages, there should have been a universal defection from the truth, and, above all things, such a propensity to this particular mode of worship, this mysterious attachment to the Serpent."

Is it not very natural, that, when men became prone to idolatry, which probably commenced before the flood, they should pay particular attention to the Serpent, whose power and influence were so well known to the descendants of Adam? And may it not be well supposed, that he, i. e. the old Serpent, the devil, had still a strong ascendancy over the minds of men? witness the example of Job. Mr Bryant's quotation from Tertullian, with respect to the Ophita in the Christtian church, is well worth our notice here. Accesserunt his Heretici etiam illi, qui Ophitæ nuncupantur. Nam Serpentem magnificant in tantum, ut illum etiam ipsi Christo præferant. Ipse enim, inquiunt, scientiæ nobis boni et mali originem dedit. Hujus animadvertens potestatem et majestatem Moyses æreum posuit Serpentem, et quicunque in eum aspexerunt sanitatem consecuti sunt. Ipse, aiunt, præterea in Evangelio imitatur Serpentis ipsius sacram majestatem, dicendo, et sicut Moyses exaltavit Serpentem in deserto, ita exaltari oportet filium hominis. Ipsum introducunt ad benedicenda eucharistia sua."

Vol. ii. p. 163. " "The first variation from the pure Zabaism consisted in the OPHIOLATRIA, OF worship of the Serpent. This innovation spread wonderfully, so that the chief deity of the Gentile world was almost universally worshipped under this symbolical representation."

From these observations one would almost be inclined to think that the worship of the Serpent was the most antient of any, or at least was a distinct kind of worship from any other. Tenison observes, “that, in the earliest ages, the creatures principally worshipped were oxen and Serpents. Serpents were lately worshipped in America, as appeareth from Acosta and the discoveries in Hackluit. And we see no tables of Isis, Osiris, or Bacchus, without a Serpent." Jackson, also, in his Chronology, vol. iii. p. 356, remarks that Garcilasio de'l Viga, who wrote the history of the Incas of Peru, tells us, "that the Spaniards, forcing into the recess of one of their temples, found there the image of a great dragon, placed as the deity of the temple and the object of religious worship: (see appendix to the Bishop of London's discourses on the use of prophecy.) And, as the dragon was the ensign of the Chinese empire, the American Peruvians might probably thence make their idol and pay worship to it."

"Dracontia, says Stukely, was a name, among the first learned nations, for the very antient sort of temples, of which they could give no account, nor well explain their meaning upon it. The temples of old, made in the form of a Serpent, were called, for that reason, Dracontia. The

universality

universality of this regard for Serpents shews the high antiquity of them as symbols, and that it was ante-diluvian." Maurice's Ind. Antiq. vol. vi. p. 172. It rather shews that the Serpent was not worshipped as a symbol, but as the real animal in consequence of the history of the fall. See Revel. xx. 2. Stukeley's farther account of the Serpent, in the following page, bears the strongest testimony to the truth of the Mosaical history, and proves that the worship of the Serpent-deity was at least coeval with, if not prior to, any other.

P. 520. "Erichthonius, the same person as Erectheus, i. e. the Arkite god, was supposed to have been enclosed in an ark. Pausan. lib. i. p. 41. He was deposited in this ark in a state of childhood, and represented under the emblem of an infant, whose lower parts ended in a Serpent. Others described him as guarded by a Serpent which twined round him."

Does not this fable seem to take its rise rather from Adam than from Noah; or, rather, are not the histories of these two persons blended together? The state of childhood may relate as well to the creation of Adam as to Noah's reviviscence from the flood.

P. 529.

"The symbols, in antient times, were instead of writing; harmless, if not abused, nay of great consequence when directed to a proper purpose. Such were the Serpent, the Ark, the Iris, the Dove, together with many others to which there are apparent allusions in Scripture. These were known to the Israelites before their descent into Egypt, being originally from that country beyond the flood, where their fathers of old resided. And, when properly applied, they were as innocent as the elementary characters by which the same histories were in after times reThe lifting up of the Serpent, in the wilderness, was as proper a prophetic designation, and as pertinent to the people to whom it was exhibited, as the purport would have been if expressed by letters and written at length upon a tablet."

The Serpent was no doubt a proper symbol to instruct the posterity of Adam in the true source of the degeneracy of mankind, but does not seem adapted, in its first appointment, to convey to mankind the memorial of their preservation by the ark, which last use of it Mr Bryant assigns it.

"Sub forma Serpentis non tantum sæpissime coli voluit Diabolus, sed Serpentis nomine frequentius innotuit Græcis et Hebræis antiquioribus, cum præsertim res divinationis ageretur. A Græcis antiquis auguriorum præses, Diabolus, Pythius et Python dicebatur. Vocibus illis a no derivatis, et Serpentis speciem denotantibus. Spiritus, in veteri Testamento memoratus, non raro dictus est 118, voce Serpentem sonante." Spencer, lib. ii. c. 16.

"Pytho ab Heb. ¡n, Serpens. Hebræi ex Serpentibus divinationes plures olim et auguria instituerunt. Unde wa et Serpentem et divinare denotat." Heinsius, Acts, xvi. 16, in Poole's Synopsis

"Phænicas,

"Phænicas, Indos, Persas, Græcos, Romanos, Chinenses, Borussos, Lithuanos, Sermatas olim superstitionis illius: i. e. Opioλargas, affines extitisse docuerunt auctores multi magnique. Ideo vero tam magna semper erat gentium circa Serpentes superstitio, quod serpentibus numen aliquod inesse persuasus erat is, qui ab initio formam Serpentis induit, et mores Serpenti similes hominibus instillavit." Spencer, lib. ii. c. 21, sect. 2.

This observation not only points out the universality of Serpent-worship, but likewise proves the antiquity and origin of it.

"Prout dæmones hircorum forma se videndos exhibere soliti, nomen, hircorum inde reportarunt; sic et spiritus illi nomen na, Serpentum, forsan acquisiverunt, quod specie Ser pentum se videndos et consulendos sæpius exhiberent: - et fatidicum illud numen Apollo in terra Chananæa primo, tandem et in Græcia Serpentis imagine coleretur." Spencer, tom. i. 247, 430. "Scire sufficiat Egyptios Typhonem suum (i. e. Pythonem et Diabolum) malorum omnium auctorem, et (quod caput erat) Osiridis sui interfectorem existimasse, eosque illud numen sacrificiis delinire solitos et demulcere. Cum autem Typhonem colore rufo fuisse crederent, ut illius gratiam inirent ei non nisi coloris cognati victimas, boves nempe rufos, offerebant." Id. p. 489.

Does not this seem to refer to the fall or destruction of Adam by the Serpent, and may it not, in some measure, account for the colour of Typhon and his sacrifices, that he was a murderer from the beginning, and delighted in blood? and hence, probably, the Dragon, or Serpent, is called red 3 Revel. xii, 3.; this not being the natural colour of the Serpent.

"Typhonis autem rufi nomine diabolum deaxerra wuggov, Egyptios intellexisse Cluverius (Germ Antiq. lib. i. c. 31) e collatis veterum testimoniis abunde comprobavit." Id. p. 505.

"In the Sacontala (i. e. Indian Antiquities) the epithet of blood-thirsty is frequently applied to the Evil Damon." Maurice's Indian Antiquities, vol. ii. p. 179. I am not quite certain what edition of Maurice's Antiq. these quotations are taken from.

It is worthy of remark, that the two principal words made use of in Scripture, to express divina tion, viz. wnɔ and aw, have a manifest reference to the Serpent; and it is likewise very observable, that the Serpent had a part in almost all the heathenish rites; particularly Plutarch mentions, "in Alexandro, ubi Olympias Bacchi orgia repræsentans, angues ingentes ex hedera et cistis, (aut canistris,) mysticis proreptantes, ad augendam venerationem ostentabat." See Spencer, tom. ii. 836.

Hence, perhaps, it comes to pass, likewise, that the circle was so much attended to, as representing the Serpent; for Kircher observes, that, "vix ullum occurrit hieroglyphicum simulacrum, ubi non occurrat sphæricum aut circulare quidpiam."

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