encompassed in its folds; and Twashta, the great artificer of the universe, is supposed to have borne the form of one.* Jagan-Nath (Juggernaut) is sometimes worshipped under the form of a seven-headed dragon; and Deonaush (the Dionusos of the Greeks) was metamorphosed into a snake. Siva and his consort, Parvati, are surrounded with snakes; and, in fact, it is superfluous to dwell upon the subject, for any one who is at all acquainted with Hindoo literature and antiquities, with the curious images and idols exhibited in museums, and with the illustrations of travels and other works on Hindustan, must have seen enough to satisfy himself as to the extent to which serpent-worship was carried in that country in ancient as well as in modern times.† In China, from time immemorial, the dragon has been the emblem of the empire. It is sculptured in all the temples, and blazoned on the vestments of the imperial family and the nobility. The Chinese believe that there is a dragon of extraordinary power in the air, in heaven, on the waters and the mountains; also, that their first emperor, Fo-hi, had the form of a man, terminating in the tail of a snake, and that two dragons attended Confucius soon after his birth. The Japanese have similar superstitions. Thus serpent-worship was at one time universal in Asia. We are, therefore, the less surprised to find that it was adopted by the Hebrews, and that the serpent plays so important a part in their theology. It is not our intention to discuss here the interpretation of the third chapter of Genesis, nor of other portions of Scripture wherein the serpent figures; but there are certain etymological considerations connected with the reptile, as conceived by the Hebrews, which throw light on other portions of history, and to which we now turn. Bryant, who profoundly studied the subject, says that the * Faber, Pagan Idolatry, i, 451. See an article in No. XLIV of The National Quarterly Review (March, 1871) on "Ceylon and its Mysteries," as to the extent to which it was carried in that island. Kaempfer Japan, p. 124. name of the sacred serpent was, in the ancient language of Canaan, variously pronounced Aub, Ab; Oub, Ob; Oph, Op; Eph, Eo, all referrible to the original (Aub) or ±x (Ab), which, being derived from N (Ab), to swell out, was probably applied to the serpent from its peculiar habit of inflating itself when irritated.* Thus the word Ob signified both serpent" and "inflation." The first mention of this serpent-god occurs in Leviticus, xx, 27, where Moses says, "A man also, or woman, that hath Aub or Ab shall surely be put to death." The English version renders this word "a familiar spirit." The Septuagint translates it "ventriloquist," but it should be rendered "a serpent-god." Deane contends that the passage should be translated, "A man also, or woman among you, who is an Ob (i. e., a priest or priestess of the serpent), shall be surely put to death." And similarly in Deut., xviii, 11, the expression "a consulter with familiar spirits" may be rendered "a consulter of the priests of Ob."+ The woman of Endor, to whom Saul applied, is called in the Hebrews "one that hath Ob," which is synonymous with "a priestess of Ob." The word Ob was frequently compounded with "On,” a name of the sun, because the serpent was symbolical of the sun. Sanchoniathon says that Thabion was the first hierophant of Phoenicia. The name Thabion is compounded of the words "Th," an abbreviation of Theuth, Thoth (whence the Greek Oɛ05), the Phoenician name for the Supreme Being, and “Abion;" and it means "the god Abion," or "the serpent solar god." The primitive serpent-worshippers of Canaan, against whom Moses cautioned the children of Israel, were the Hivites. This word, according to Bochart,¶ is derived from Hhivia, a serpent, the root of which is Eph, or Ev, one of the variations of the original Aub. "Ephites" or "Evites," being aspirated, would become Hevites or Hivites, whence the Greeks got their word "Ophites," by which they designated the worAntient Mythology, i, 58. † p. 83. .(Baaleth Aub) כצלתיאור $ Deane, p. 85. shippers of the serpent. The Greek word Ophis ("Op15), a serpent, is derived from Oph, the Egyptian name of that reptile, which is the same as Eph. In the second century of the Christian era a sect sprung up in Syria claiming affinity with the Christians, but in reality they were serpent-worshippers, and were called Ophites. They reverenced the serpent more than they did Christ, because it instructed men in the knowledge of good and evil, and because Moses, aware of its power and majesty, set up a brazen one, and whoever looked at it was healed;* also because the Gospel alludes to this sacred power where it says, "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up;"+ that is, as the people were healed by the serpent, they shall be healed in like manner by the Son of man. This episode of Moses in the wilderness requires more attentive examination than is ordinarily bestowed upon it by those who care only for the literal sense of Scripture. The Israelites were about to invade Edom, after having abode a long time in the wilderness, and lapsed several times into the idolatrous habits which they had acquired in Egypt. Among these was the worship of animals and of serpents. The tribes of the wilderness were also idolaters, and serpent-worship prevailed all over Canaan. The Israelites hesitated to attack Edom, and murmured against God and Moses; wherefore fiery serpents were sent among them, which bit and killed many persons. The people then confessed their sin, and prayed for deliverance; so Moses caused a brazen image of a serpent to be made and set up on a pole, and commanded those who had been bitten to look on it. Those who did so lived. There is an allegorical interpretation of this narrative, which may commend itself to thoughtful minds. It is, that the Israelites had relapsed into their ancient serpent "Accesserunt his hæretici etiam qui ophitæ nuncupantur: nam serpentem magnificant in tantum ut illum etiam Christo præferant. Ipseenim, inquiunt, scientiæ nobis boni et mali originem dedit." Epiphanius De præscript. Hæret., c. xlvii. + John, iii, 14. worship, and had thus become morally dead and unfit to continue in the congregation; but Moses convinced them of the absurdity of worshipping a reptile, and, by way of impressing this on their minds, he set up the brazen image of one on a pole, and thus cured them of their senseless practice. "It came to pass that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived."* That is, when a man had been seized with a desire to worship a serpent, he was reminded of his folly by looking on the brazen one, and "lived," i. e., he became alive to the duty of worshipping Jehovah. It is probable that the Israelites and the Canaanites proffered blind worship to the serpent at the early period of their emigration from Egypt. It was not until a much later age— centuries afterwards-that we find the symbolical meaning of it fully established. The Roman emperor Elagabalus was high-priest of Esculapius, in the temple of that-god, at Emesa. Serpents were deemed peculiarly sacred to Esculapius, and in his temples live ones were kept for purposes of worship. Elagabalus imported into Rome small serpents of the Egyptian breed, which were called, in that country, agathodæmons, or good spirits, and these he worshipped. His name, when resolved into its elements, shows that he had been educated in the mysteries of ophiolatry. It is El-og-ob-el, which, in Hebrew, means "the god Og, the serpent-god." The name of Og, king of Bashan, will at once occur in connection with this, and it is singular that he is described as ruling over all the region of Argobt which means "the light of the serpent." The whole region was afterwards named by the Greeks Trachonitis, a mistake for Drachonitis; i. e., the land of snakes. Ob was simply the serpent-god, while Elagabalus was the solar deity, symbolized by the serpent. This marks the difference between the era of the emperor and that of Moses. Mr. Deane, however, goes beyond the literal rendering of the nar+ Deuteronomy, iii, 4 * Numbers, xxxi, 9. rative of Moses, and believes that the "fiery" serpents sent among the Israelites in the wilderness were seraphim, and had wings. He cites* the Rabbi Bechai, who, in his commentary on Genesis, iii, 14, observes: "This is the secret or mystery of the holy language that a serpent is called saraph, as an angel is called saraph, and hence the Scriptures call serpents seraphim (Numbers, xxi, 6-8), because they were the offspring of this old saraph”—that is, the serpent that tempted Eve. One of the rabbinic traditions respecting Adam is, that Eve was his second wife, whom he married after putting away his first wife, Lilith, who was partly serpent-a legend which, if it has any basis beyond that of a diseased imagination, would suit the views of those who think that Adam was not the first man, but only the first representative man, a pure Caucasian, who became ruler over a degraded, Turanian, serpent-worshipping people in Mesopotamia, and put away his native wife, who was an idolater, substituting in her place a Causasian woman, who, at first, assisted him in establishing the worship of the One God, but was afterwards led away into the serpent-worship which prevailed around her; and she finally induced him to practise it. Hence the fall!—a politicoreligious one! The lengths to which the human imagination has gone on this subject are truly astonishing. One would think that the authors of them had been bitten and driven mad by serpents. The sect called the Gnostics taught that the ruler of this world was of a dracontic form:† they flourished in the first and second centuries of the Christian era. The Ophites (before mentioned) sung hymns to the Father, through a live serpent, and kissed the reptile; breaking and eating the bread it had crawled over, and calling it the Eucharist ‡ Manes, a celebrated Persian heretic of the third century, taught that Christ was an incarnation of the great serpent, who *The Worship of the Serpent, p. 58. Bryant, Anal., ii, p. 91. |