Serpent deity

“ This second sort of temples made by the circle and snake, was call’d in very old times, Dracontium, and not understood. The first temples made in form of the symbol of the deity. Why mankind should make the serpent the symbol of the deity? Of symbols in general. Their antiquity and use. It was the first kind of writing, even antediluvian. The serpent of high account from China to Britain. Of the nature of the serpent. The extraordinary beauty of the creature. Its wonderful motion without legs, thought to be like that of the gods. The wisdom of the serpent consider’d. ”

“ The Hindu women, according to Payne Knight, still carry the lingam, or consecrated symbol of the generative attribute of the deity, in solemn procession between two serpents; and in a sacred casket, which held the Egg and the Phallus in the mystic processions of the Greeks, was also a Serpent. ”

“ They represented the World by a Circle, in the middle of which was a Serpent, representing the good Demon, or Genius of the World, by which ’tis animated, and is a Symbol of the Almighty Creator. Behold here the Blasphemy of Satan, in giving to God the Form of a Serpent, which he had borrow’d himself to make war against God in Paradise. They sometimes represented their Gods with the Bodies of Serpents, and honour’d those odious Animals with divine Worship, as Symbols of Apollo, of the Sun, and of Medicine, and were put into the Charge of Ceres and Proserpine. ”

“ In all the ancient mysteries, the serpent was more or less conspicuously introduced, and always as a symbol of the invigorating or active power of nature. The serpent was an emblem of the sun. Solar, Phallic, and Serpent worship, are all forms of a single worship. [8] The Hindu Boodh, Chinese Fo, Egyptian Osiris, Northern Woden, Mexican Quetzalcoatl (feathered serpent) , are one and the same. ”

“ In the Vedic heavens the serpent is a magician expert in every kind of magic; in the kingdom of the serpents the young lost hero recovers his splendour, [Pg 406] wisdom, and victorious power. Hence the worship in India of the serpent, who is revered as a symbol of every species of learning. We have, on a previous occasion, found the horned or crested serpent who personifies, in the Ṛigvedas, fire or the god Agnis, and by this we must understand the crest or mane of the sun, which comes out of the darkness; thus the god Haris or Vishṇus lies upon a crested serpent or a many-headed serpent. ”

“ Inasmuch, moreover, as from the monster serpent, the cloud and the darkness, come forth flashes of lightning, thunder-bolts, sunbeams, tongues of fire, even serpents sometimes assume a divine nature in the Vedic hymns. ”

“ The Ophites preserved live serpents in their sacred chest, and looked upon them as the mediator between them and God. Manes, in the third century, taught serpent worship in Asia Minor, under the name of Christianity, promulgating that
"Christ was an incarnation of the Great Serpent, who glided over the cradle of the Virgin Mary, when she was asleep, at the age of a year and a half." ”

“ But by the side of divine serpents, essentially benign in character, protective, prophetic, linked with gods of health, life, and healing, we do find in all mythologies a gigantic serpent, who personifies a hostile and nocturnal power, a wicked principle, material darkness, and moral evil. ”

“ The supposed connection of the serpent and serpent-worship with the healing art has been handed down to us emblematically in the serpent symbol with which the caduceus of Æsculapius is always represented as surrounded. ”

“ Where a solar worship has grown up, either the old conception of the beneficent serpent continues to exist alongside of the new views, without being understood or harmonised with these, or else the defeat of the Serpent by the victory of the Sun becomes a feature of the new religion, and the Serpent appears as a hostile figure. ”

“ The priests of the temple of Isis had a silver image of a serpent so constructed as to enable a person in attendance to move its head without being observed by the supplicating votary.
“But Egyptian superstition was not contented with worshipping divinity through its emblem the serpent. The senseless idolater soon bowed before the symbol itself, and worshipped this reptile, the representative of man’s energy, as a god.” ”

“ The divinity of the serpent is proved by the occurrence of a horned serpent with twelve Roman gods on a Gallo-Roman altar.711 In other cases a horned or ram's-headed serpent appears as the attribute of a god, and we have seen that the ram's-headed serpent may be a fusion of the serpent as a chthonian animal with the ram, sacrificed to the dead. ”

“ The serpent, represented as walking, or formed in a manner to be able to walk, standing in front of, and near a female figure, is to me, one of the greatest representations I have ever seen upon paper, or a writing substance; and must go so far towards convincing the rational mind of the correctness and divine authority of the holy scriptures, and especially that part which has ever been assailed by the infidel community, as being a fiction, as to carry away, with one might sweep, the whole atheistical fabric, without leaving a vestige sufficient for a foundation stone. ”

“ The next thing that comes under Consideration is, the Worship of Serpents, which is observed thro’ all the Pagan Antiquity. The Devil, who, under the Shape of a Serpent, tempted our first Parents, has, with unwearied Application, labour’d to deify that Animal, as a Trophy of his first Victory over Mankind. The Conquest made by the old Serpent in Paradise, and the wonderful Cures made by the Shadow of a Serpent in the Wilderness, contributed very much towards making that hateful Creature so venerable in the Eyes of so many Nations. ”

“ From the miraculous Cures done by the brazen Serpent. Alexander affected the Honour of being begot by a Serpent, ador’d as a God, by a Decree of the Priests.
WHAT Reason can be assigned for giving religious Worship to Serpents? I answer,
It is no easy Matter to find out the Original of Pagan Idolatry, having no authentick Records of those remote Times, therefore Conjectures, or nothing must content the honest Enquirer: Something may be offer’d, without going beyond our Depth. ”

“ The serpent was formerly queen of all creatures. She had a head like rubies, and eyes like emeralds. Her height was that of a camel, and the most beautiful colours adorned her skin, and her hair and face were those of a beautiful maiden. She was fragrant as musk and amber; her food was saffron; sweet hymns of praise were uttered by her melodious tongues; she slept by the waters of the heavenly river Kaulhar; she had been created a thousand years before man, and was Eve's favourite companion. ”

“ Uniformity of tradition can alone satisfactorily explain uniformity of superstition, where local circumstances are so discordant.
“The serpent is the symbol which most generally enters into the mythology of the world. ”

“ But the association of the serpent with Æsculapius, as a remnant of serpent-worship, can be explained without going to the Egyptian Tum, or any other foreign sun-god. One has but to turn to Apollo, to whom, as in the case of, perhaps, all sun-gods, the reptile was sacred. ”

“ In all mythological language the snake is an emblem of immortality: its endless figure when its tail is inserted in its mouth, and the annual renewal of its skin and vigour, afford symbols of continued youth and eternity; and its supposed medicinal or life-preserving qualities may also have contributed to the fabled honours of the serpent tribe. In Hindu mythology serpents are of universal occurence and importance; in some shape or other they abound in all directions; a similar state of things prevails in Greece and Egypt. ”

“ The symbolical representation of the solar year in the form of a serpent biting his tail is equivalent to the myth of the monster-serpent who dies when his eggs are broken, that is, when the light comes out of its tenebrous envelope. ”

“ In all probability, [55] when a race, like the ancient Egyptians, for instance, had reached a high degree of civilization, they idealized many of their religious beliefs and customs; hence, the serpent probably lost its initial and simple symbolical meaning, and stood for something higher and more ethical during the reign of the great Pharaohs, and the Golden Age of the Greeks and Latins. I am positive, however, that the snake’s original significance was wholly phallic in character, and that its adoption as a symbol was simple and material, as I explain elsewhere in this essay. ”

“ Here we have the serpent omitted, which is the principal animal to be considered, for really the serpent is the owner of the stone that grows in its head. This idea is very general—that the carbuncle is to be found in a serpent's head. Pliny has this notion; indeed it is found everywhere. [15] The origin of this myth is that the great serpent is the heaven-god—and on the gnostic seals we have the Demiurge so represented as a crowned or nimbed serpent. In the head of this great heaven-god is the sun, the glorious stone that gives life and light and gladness and plenty. ”

“ God could have healed these men by telling them to look up even in any way. Why precisely the brazen serpent should be the instrument of their cure I do not know; the Bible does not tell me. I can only tell you a thought that has come to me about it. Perhaps it was for this reason: It would be surely the thought of every dying Hebrew who looked at that serpent and felt a new life pulsing through all his veins, and the pain of death vanishing away, that that serpent came from God, and was a very token and proof of the warm heart-love of God to him. ”

“ During many of the ages of fire-worship, holy fire, although a material substance, seems to have been too subtle to clearly represent the god-idea, hence everywhere the worship of the serpent is found to be interwoven with it. In fact, so closely are serpent, fire, pillar, and other phallic faiths intermingled that it is impossible to separate them. ”

“ Nearly everywhere that Neolithic culture went, there went a disposition to associate the sun and the serpent in decoration and worship. This primitive serpent worship spread ultimately far beyond the regions where the snake is of serious practical importance in human life. ”

“ Hence, also, the Roman custom of keeping serpents in every household, and the serpent-worship connected with their god Aesculapius, to whose shrines, as well as to those of Adonis in Syria, childless women repaired that they might be quickened by a dead saint, a jinn, o by the god himself, in serpent form. ”

“ In ancient mythology, all heroes of light were opposed by the "Old Serpent," the Devil, symbolized by Serpents, Dragons, Sphinxes and other monsters. The Serpent was, among the ancient Eastern nations, the symbol of Evil, of Winter, of Darkness and of Death. It also symbolized the dark cloud, which, by harboring the rays of the Sun, preventing its shining, and therefore, is apparently attempting to destroy it. The Serpent is one of the chief mystic personifications of the Rig-Veda, under the names of Ahi, Suchna, and others. ”

“ Indeed, the serpent has almost universally been regarded as a symbol of immortal life, and especially, as frequently presented in ancient sculptures, with its tail in its mouth, thus forming an endless circle. ”

“ She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that the angel said to Bulukiya when describing the serpent, "'And were it not for fear of the Most Highest, this serpent would assuredly swallow up all that is above it, air and fire, and the Angel and his burden, without sensing it. When Allah created this serpent He said to it by inspiration, 'I will give thee somewhat to keep for me, so open thy mouth.' The serpent replied, 'Do whatso Thou wilt;' and opened his mouth and God placed Hell into his maw, saying, 'Keep it until the Day of Resurrection. ”

“ Of all these venerable legends painted in colours or embalmed in verse, written in story or sculptured on stone, none are more remarkable than those where the serpent appears. Old divines imagined that the creature whose shape Satan borrowed for the temptation had originally no malignant aspect; neither the poisoned fangs, nor eyes of fire, nor cold, scaly, wriggling form which man and beast recoil from with instinctive horror. ”

“ There is a passage in Plutarch from which it appears the custom to sacrifice an old woman (previously condemned to death for some crime) in honour of the serpent-gods by burying her alive on the banks of the Indus (ii. 467, and note 4) . Ktesias also mentions the serpent-worship (ii. 642) . In Buddhist legends, serpents are often mentioned as protecting-patrons of certain towns (ii. 467) . Among the many kinds of serpents which India possesses, it is the gigantic Cobra di capello which is the object of worship (ii. 679) . (See further notice of the serpent-worship, iv. 109.) ”

“ The serpent is perpetually close upon the heel of harmony. It pursues with hatred the spiritual idea, from the beginning to the end. In Genesis, this allegorical, talking serpent typifies mortal mind, “more subtle than any other beast of the field.” In the Apocalypse, when nearing its doom, its evil increases, and it becomes the great red dragon, swollen with sin, inflamed with war against Spirit, and ripe for destruction. It is full of lust and hate, loathing the brightness of divine glory.
Revelation xii. ”

“ This was done accordingly. "Now you are bound," said the prophet, addressing the serpent, "loose yourself if you can." "I cannot," said the serpent, "I am bound so fast, that I can scarcely move." "Then die," rejoined the prophet, "by a just sentence. You were always ungrateful to man, and you always will be. My lord, you are now free; shake the venom from your bosom, and go your way: do not repeat your folly. Remember that the serpent is only influenced by his natural propensities." ”