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Since the dawn of written history, and from the most remote periods, the serpent has been regarded with the highest veneration as the most mysterious of living creatures. Being alike an object of wonder, admiration and fear, it is not strange that it became early connected with numerous superstitions; and when we remember how imperfectly understood were its habits we shall not wonder at the extraordinary attributes with which it was invested, nor perhaps even why it obtained so general a worship. Thus centuries ago Horapollo referring to serpent symbolism, said: "When the Egyptians were representing a universe they delineated the spectacle as a variegated snake devouring its own tail, the scales intimating the stars in the universe, the animal being extremely heavy, as is the earth, and extremely slippery like the water; moreover it every year puts off its old age with its skin as, in the universe, the recurring year effects a corresponding change, and becomes renovated, while the making use of its own body for food implies that all things whatever which are generated by divine providence in the world undergo a corruption into them again."

In all probability the annual shedding of the skin and the supposed rejuvenation of the animal was that which first connected it with the idea of eternal succession of form, subsequent reproduction and dissolution. This doctrine is typified in the notion of the succession of ages which prevailed among the Greeks, and the similar notion met with among nearly all primitive peoples. The ancient mysteries, with few or perhaps no exceptions, were all intended to illustrate the grand phenomena of nature. The mysteries of Osiris, Isis and Horus in Egypt; of Cybele in Phrygia, of Ceres and Proserpine at Eleusis, of Venus and Adonis in Phoenicia, of Bona Dea and of Priapus in Rome, all had this in in common, that they both mystified and typified the creation of things and the perpetuation of life. In all of them the serpent was conspicuously introduced as it symbolized and indicated the invigorating energy of nature. In the mysteries of Ceres, the grand secret which was communicated to the initiates was put in this enigma—"The bull has begotten a serpent and the serpent a bull," the bull being a prominent emblem of generative force. In ancient Egypt it was usually the bull's horns which served as a symbol for the entire animal. When with the progress of centuries the bull became too expensive an animal to be commonly used for any purpose, the ram was substituted; hence the frequency of the ram's horns, as a symbol for Jove, seen so frequently, for example, among Roman antiquities.

Originally fire was taken to be one of the emblems of the sun, and thus most naturally, inevitably and universally the sun came to symbolize the active, vivifying principle of nature. That the serpent should in time typify the same principle, while the egg symbolized the more passive or feminine element, is equally certain but less easy of explanation; indeed we are to regard the serpent as the symbol of the great hermaphrodite first principle of nature. "It entered into the mythology of every nation, consecrated almost every temple, symbolized almost every deity, was imagined in the heavens, stamped on the earth and ruled in the realms of eternal sorrow." For this animal was estimated to be the most spirited of all reptiles of fiery nature, inasmuch as it exhibits an incredible celerity, moving by its spirit without hands or feet or any of the external members by which other animals effect their motion, while in its progress it assumes a variety of forms, moving in a spiral course and darting forward with whatever degree of swiftness it pleases.

The close relationship if not absolute identity among the early races of man between Solar, Phallic and Serpent worship was most striking; so marked indeed as to indicate that they are all forms of a single worship. It is with the latter that we must for a little while concern ourselves. How prominent a place serpent worship plays in our own Old Testament will be remarked as soon as one begins to reflect upon it. The part played by the serpent in the biblical myth concerning the origin of man is the first and most striking illustration. In the degenerated ancient mysteries of Bacchus some of the persons who took part in the ceremonies used to carry serpents in their hands and with horrid screams call "Eva, Eva;" the attendants were in fact often crowned with serpents while still making these frantic cries. In the Sabazian mysteries the snake was permitted to slip into the bosom of the person to be initiated and then to be removed from below the clothing. This ceremony was said to have originated among the Magi. It has been held that the invocation "Eva" related to the great mother of mankind; even so good an authority as Clemens of Alexandria held to this opinion, but Clemens also acknowledges that the name Eva, when properly aspirated is practically the same as Epha, or Opha, which the Greeks call Ophis, which is, in English, serpent. In most of the other mysteries serpent rites were introduced and many of the names were extremely suggestive. The Abaddon mentioned in the book of Revelation is certainly some serpent deity, since the prefix Ab, signifies not only father, but serpent. By Zoroaster the expanse of the heavens and even nature itself was described under the symbol of the serpent. In ancient Persia temples were erected to the serpent tribe, and festivals consecrated to their honor, some relic of this being found in the word Basilicus, or royal serpent, which gives rise to the term Basilica applied to the Christian churches of the present era. The Ethiopians, even, of the present day derive their name from the Greek Aithiopes, meaning the serpent gods worshipped long before them; again, the Island of Euboea signifies the Serpent Island and properly spelled should be Oub-Aia. The Greeks claimed that Medusa's head was brought by Perseus, by which they mean the serpent deity, as the worship was introduced into Greece by a people called Peresians. The head of Medusa denoted divine wisdom, while the Island was sacred to the serpent. The worship of the serpent being so old, many places as well as races received names indicating the prevalence of this general superstition; but this is no time to catalogue names—though one perhaps should mention Ophis, Oboth, Eva in Macedonia, Dracontia, and last but not least, the name of Eve and the Garden of Eden.

Seth was, according to some, a semi-divine first ancestor of the Semites; Bunsen has shown that several of the antedeluvian descendants of Adam were among the Phoenician deities; thus Carthagenians had as God, Yubal or Jubal who would appear to have been the sun-god of Esculapius; or, spelled more correctly, Ju-Baal, that is Beauty of Baal.

Whether or not the serpent symbol has a distinct phallic reference has been disputed, but the more the subject is broadly studied the more it would seem that such is the case. It must certainly appear that the older races had that form of belief with which the serpent was always more or less symbolically connected, that is, adoration of the male principle of generation, one of whose principal phases was undoubtedly ancestor worship, while somewhat later the race adored the female principle which they symbolized by the sacred tree so often alluded to in Scripture as the Assyrian grove. Whether snakes be represented singly, coupled in pairs as in the well known Caduceus or Rod of Esculaipius, or in the crown placed upon the head of many a god and goddess, or the many headed snake drinking from the jewelled cup, or a snake twisted around a tree with another approaching it, suggesting temptation and fall—in all these the underlying principle is always the same. Symbols of this character are met with not only in the temples of ancient Egypt but in ruins antedating them in Persia and the East; in the antiquities belonging to the races that first peopled what is now Greece and Italy, in the rock markings of India and of Central Europe, in the Cromlechs of Great Britain and Scandinavia, in the Great Serpent Mound which still remains in Ohio, and in many other mounds left by the mound builders of this country, in the ruins of Central America and Yucatan, and in the traditions and relics of the Aztecs and Toltecs—in fact wherever antiquarian research has penetrated or where monuments of ancient peoples remain. There never has been so widespread a superstition, and no matter what later forms it may have assumed we must admit that it, first of all, and for a long time was man's tribute to the great, all powerful and unknown regenerative principle of nature, which has been deified again and again, and which always has been and always will be the greatest mystery within the ken of mankind.

Brown in his "Great Dionysiak Myth" says the serpent has these points of connection with Dionysus, (1) as a symbol of and connected with wisdom, (2) as a solar emblem, (3) as a symbol of time and eternity, (4) as an emblem of the earth, life, (5) as connected with the fertilizing mystery, (6) as a phallic emblem. Referring to the last of these he says: "The serpent being connected with the sun, the earth, life and fertility, must needs be also a phallic emblem, and was appropriate to the cult of Dionysos Priapos." Again, Sir G. W. Cox says, "It is unnecessary to analyze theories which profess to see in it worship of the creeping brute or the wide-spreading tree; a religion based upon the worship of the venomous reptile must have been a religion of terror. In the earliest glimpses which we have the serpent is the symbol of life and of love, nor is the phallic cultus in any respect a cult of the full grown branching tree." Again, "This religion, void of reason, condemned in the wisdom of Solomon, probably survived even Babylonian captivity; certainly it was adopted by the sects of Christians which were known as Ophites, Gnostics and Nicolaitans."

Another learned author says: "By comparing the varied legends of the East and West in conjunction we obtain a full outline of the mythology of the ancients. It recognizes as the primary element of things two independent principles of nature, the male and female, and these, in characteristic union as the soul and body, constitute the Great Hermaphrodite Deity, the one, the universe itself, consisting still of the two separate elements of its composition, modified though combined in one individual, of which all things are regarded but as parts." In fact the characteristics of all pagan deities, male or female, gradually mold into each other and at last into one or two; for as William Jones has stated, it seems a well-founded opinion that the entire list of gods and goddesses means only the powers of nature, principally those of the sun, expressed in a variety of ways with a multitude of fanciful names. The Creation is, in fact, human rather than a divine product in this sense, that it was suggested to the mind of man by the existence of things, while its method was, at least at first, suggested by the operation of nature; thus man saw the living bird emerge from the egg, after a certain period of incubation, a phenomenon equivalent to actual creation as apprehended by his simple mind. Incubation obviously then associated itself with creation, and this fact will explain the universality with which the egg was received as a symbol in the earlier systems of cosmogony. By a similar process creation came to be symbolized in the form of a phallus, and so Egyptians in their refinement of these ideas adopted as their symbol of the great first cause a Scarabaeus, indicating the great hermaphroditic unity, since they believed this insect to be both male and female. They beautifully typified a part of this idea also in the adoration which they paid to the water lily, or Lotus, so generally regarded as sacred throughout the East. It is the sublime and beautiful symbol which perpetually occurs in oriental mythology, and, as Maurice has stated, not without substantial reason, for it is its own beautiful progeny and contains a treasure of physical instruction. The lotus flower grows in the water among broad leaves, while in its center is formed a seed vessel shaped like a bell, punctured on the top with small cavities in which its seeds develop; the openings into the seed cells are too small to permit the seeds to escape when ripe, consequently they absorb moisture and develop within the same, shooting forth as new plants from the place where they originated; the bulb of the vessel serving as a matrix which shall nourish them until they are large enough to burst open and release themselves, after which they take root wherever deposited. "The plant, therefore, being itself productive of itself, vegetating from its own matrix, being fostered in the earth, was naturally adopted as a symbol of the productive power of the waters upon which the creative spirit of the Creator acted, in giving life and vegetation to matter. We accordingly find it employed in every part of the northern hemisphere where symbolical religion, improperly called idolatry, existed."

Further exemplification of the same underlying principle is seen in the fact that most all of the ancient deities were paired; thus we have heaven and earth, sun and moon, fire and earth, father and mother, etc. Faber says "The ancient pagans of almost every part of the globe were wont to symbolize the world by an egg, hence this symbol is introduced into the cosmogonies of nearly all nations, and there are few persons even among those who have made mythology their study to whom the mundane egg is not perfectly familiar; it is the emblem not only of earth and life but also of the universe in its largest extent." In the Island of Cyprus is still to be seen a gigantic egg-shaped vase which is supposed to represent the mundane or Orphic egg. It is of stone, measuring thirty feet in circumference, and has upon it a sculptured bull, the emblem of productive energy. It is supposed to signify the constellation of Taurus, whose rising was connected with the return of the mystic re-invigorating principle.

The work of the Mound Builders in this country is generally and widely known, still it is perhaps not so generally known how common upon this continent was the general use of the serpent symbol. Their remains are spread over the country from the sources of the Allegheny in N. Y. state westward to Iowa and Nebraska, to a considerable extent through the Mississippi Valley, and along the Susquehanna as far as the Valley of Wyoming in Pennsylvania. They are found even along the St. Lawrence River; they also line the shore of the Gulf from Florida to Texas. That they were erected for other than defensive purposes is most clear; without knowing exactly what was the government of their builders the presumption is that it combined both the priestly and civil functions, as obtained centuries ago in Mexico. The Great Serpent Mound, already alluded to, had a length of at least 1,000 feet; the outline was perfectly regular and the mouth was widely open as if in the act of swallowing or ejecting an oval figure, also formed of earth, whose longest diameter was one hundred and sixty feet. Again near Granville, Ohio, occurs the form of an alligator in connection with which was indubitable evidence of an altar. Near Tarlton, Ohio, is another earth work in the form of a cross. There is every reason to think that sacrifices were made upon the altars nearly always found in connection with these mounds. Among the various animal effigies found in Wisconsin, mounds in the form of a serpent are most frequently met with, while circles enclosing a pentagon, or a mound with eight radiating points, undoubtedly representing the sun, were also found.

There would seem in all these representations to be an unmistakable reference to that form of early cosmogony in which every vivification of the mundane egg constituted a real act of creation. In Japan this conceptive egg is allegorically represented by a nest-egg shown floating upon an expanse of water, against which a bulb is striking with horns. The Sandwich Islanders have a tradition that a bird, which with them is an emblem of deity, laid an egg upon the waters, which burst of itself and thus produced the Islands. In Egypt, Kneph was represented as a serpent emitting from his mouth an egg, from which proceeds the divinity Phtha. In the Bible there is frequent reference to seraphs; Se Ra Ph is the singular of seraphim, meaning, splendor, fire or light. It is emblematic of the fiery sun, which under the name of the Serpent Dragon was destroyed by the reformer Hezekiah; or, it means, also, the serpent with wings and feet, as used to be represented in funeral rituals.

Undoubtedly Abraham brought with him from Chaldea into lower Egypt symbols of simple phallic deities. The reference in the Bible to the Teraphim of Jacob's family reminds us that Terah was the name of Abraham's father, and that he was a maker of images. Undoubtedly the Teraphim were the same as the Seraphim; that is, were serpent images and were the household charms of the Semitic worshippers of the Sun-God, to whom the serpent was sacred. In Numbers, 21, the serpent symbol of the Exodus is called a seraph; moreover when the people were bitten by a fiery serpent Moses prayed for them, when Jehovah replied, "Make them a fiery serpent, (literally seraph) and set it upon a pole, and it shall come to pass that every one who is bitten when he looketh upon it shall live." The exact significance of this healing figure of the serpent is far to seek.

In this connection it must be remembered also, that among several of the Semitic tongues the same root signifies both serpent and phallus, which are both in effect solar emblems. Cronus of the ancient Orphic theogony, probably identical with Hercules, was represented under the mixed emblem of a lion and a serpent, or often as a serpent alone. He was originally considered Supreme, as is shown from his being called Il, which is the same as the Hebrew, El, which was, according to St. Jerome, one of the ten names of God. Damascius in his life of Isidorus mentions that Cronus was worshipped under the name of El. Brahm, Cronus and Kneph each represented the mystical union of the reciprocal or active and passive regenerative principles.

The Semitic Deity, Seth, was certainly a serpent god, and can be identified with Saturn and with deities of other people. The common name of God, Eloah, among the Hebrews and other Semites, goes back into the earliest times; indeed Bryant goes so far as to say that El was the original name of the Supreme deity among all the nations of the East. He was the same as Cronus, who again was the primeval Saturn. Thus Saturn and El were the same deity, and like Seth were symbolized by the serpent.

On the western continent this great unity was equally recognized; in Mexico as Teotl, in Peru as Varicocha or the Soul of the Universe, in Central America and Yucatan as Stunah Ku, or God of Gods. The mundane egg was everywhere received as the symbol of the original, passive, unorganized formless nature, and later became associated with other symbols referring to the creative force or vitalizing influence, which was often represented in emblem by a bull. In the Aztec Pantheon all the other gods and goddesses were practically modified impersonations of these two principles. In the simpler mythology of Peru these principles took the form of the Sun, and the Moon his wife. Among the ruins of Uxmal are two long massive walls of stone thirty feet thick, whose inner sides are embellished with sculpture containing fragments of colossal entwined serpents which run the whole length of the walls; in the center of the wall was a great stone ring.

Among the annals of the Mexicans the woman whose name old Spanish writers translated "The woman of our Fish" is always represented as accompanied by a great male serpent. This serpent is the Sun-God, the principal deity of the Mexican Pantheon, while the name which they give to the goddess mother of primitive man signifies "Woman of the Serpent."

Inseparably connected with the serpent as a phallic emblem are also the pyramids, and, as is well known, pyramids abound in Mexico and Central America. As Humboldt years ago observed pyramids existed through Mexico, in the forests of Papantha at a short distance above sea-level; on the plains of Cholula and of Teotihuacan, and at an elevation which exceeds those of the passes of the Alps. In most widely different nations, in climates most different, man seems to have adopted the same style of construction, the same ornaments, the same customs, and to have placed himself under the government of the same political institutions. Mayer describing one of his trips says, "I constantly saw serpents in the city of Mexico, carved in stone and in the various collections of antiquities." The symbolic feathered serpent was by no means peculiar to Mexico and Yucatan. Squier encountered it in Nicaragua on the summits of volcanic ridges; even among our historic Indian tribes, for example among the Lenni Lenape, they called the rattlesnake "grandfather," and made offerings of tobacco to it. Furthermore in most of the Indian traditions of the Manitou the great serpent figures most conspicuously.

It has been often remarked that every feature of the religion of the new world discovered by Cortez and Pizarro indicates a common origin for the superstitions of both continents, for we have the same worship of the sun, the same pyramidal monuments, and the same universal veneration of the serpent. Thus it will be seen that the serpent symbol had a wide acceptance upon this continent as well as the other, and among the uncivilized and semi-barbaric races; that it entered widely into all symbolic representation with an almost universal significance. Perhaps the latest evidences of the persistence of this belief may be seen in the tradition ascribing to St. Patrick, the credit of having driven all the serpents from Irish soil; or in the perpetuation of rites, festivals and representations whose obsolete origin is now forgotten. For instance the annual May-day festival, scarcely yet discontinued, is certainly of this origin, yet few if any of those who participate in it are aware that it is only the perpetuation of the vernal solar festival of Baal, and that the garlanded May-pole was anciently a phallic emblem. Among men of my own craft the traditions of Aesculapius are familiar. Aesculapius is, however, inseparably connected with the serpent myth and in statues and pictures he is almost always represented in connection with a serpent. Thus he is seen with the Caduceus or the winged wand entwined by two serpents, or, sometimes with serpents' bodies wound around his own; but rarely ever without some serpent emblem. Moreover the Caduceus is identical with the simple figure of the Cross by which its inventor, Thoth, is said to have symbolized the four elements proceeding from a common center. In connection with the Cross it is interesting also that in many places in the East serpent worship was not immediately destroyed by the advent of Christianity. The Gnostics for example, among Christian sects, united it with the religion of the Cross, as might be shown by many quotations from religious writers. The serpent clinging to the Cross was used as a symbol of Christ, and a form of Christian serpent worship was for a long time in vogue among many beside the professed Ophites. In the celebration of the Bacchic mysteries the mystery of religion, as usual throughout the world, was concealed in a chest or box. The Israelites had their sacred Ark, and every nation has had some sacred receptacle for holy things and symbols. The worshippers of Bacchus carried in their consecrated baskets the mystery of their God, while after their banquet it was usual to pass around the cup which was called "The Cup of the Good Daemon," whose symbol was a serpent. This was long before the institution of the rite of the Last Supper. The fable of the method by which the god Aesculapius was brought from Epidaurus to Rome, and the serpentine form in which he appeared before his arrival in Rome for the purpose of checking the terrible pestilence, are well known. The serpentine column which still stands in the old race course in Constantinople is certainly a relic of serpent worship, though this fact was not appreciated by Constantine when he set it up.

The significance of the Ark is not to be overlooked. First, Noah was directed to take with him into the Ark animals of every kind. But this historical absurdity, read aright and in its true phallic sense, means that the Ark was the sacred Argha of Hindoo mythology, which like the moon in Zoroastrian teachings, carries in itself the germ of all things. Read in this sense the thing is no longer incomprehensible. As En Arche (in the beginning) Elohim created the Heavens and the Earth, so in the Ark were the seeds of all things preserved that they might again repopulate the earth. Thus this Ark of Noah, or of Osiris, the primeval ship whose navigation has been ascribed to various mythological beings, was in fact the Moon or the Ship of the Sun, in which his seed is supposed to be hidden until it bursts forth in new life and power. But the dove which figures so conspicuously in the biblical legend was consecrated to Venus in all her different names, in Babylon, in Syria, in Palestine and in Greece; it even attended upon Janus in his Voyage of the Golden Fleece. And so the story of Jonah going to Joppa, a seaport where Dagon, the Fish-God was worshipped, and of the great fish, bears a suspicious relation to the same cult, for the fish was revered at Joppa as was the dove at Nineveh.

It has been impossible to dissociate serpent and serpent worship from Aesculapius. This is not because this mythological divinity is supposed to have been the founder of my profession, but because he has been given at all times a serpentine form and has been, apparently, on the most familiar terms with the animal. Pausanias, indeed, assures us that he often appeared in serpentine form, and the Roman citizens of two thousand years ago saw in this god "in reptilian form an object of high regard and worship." When this divinity was invited to make Rome his home, in accordance with the oracle, he is represented as saying:

"I come to leave my shrine;

This serpent view, that with ambitious play

My staff encircles; mark him every way;

His form though larger, nobler, I'll assume,

And, changed as God's should be, bring aid to Rome."

(Ovid: Metamorphosis XV).

When in due time this salutary serpent arrived upon the island in the Tiber he began to assume his natural form, whatever that may have been;

"And now no more the drooping city mourns,

Joy is again restored and health returns."

Considering then the intimate relation between the founder of medicine and the serpent it will not seem strange to you that the serpent myth is a subject of keen interest to every student of the history of medicine.

This devotion to serpent worship appears to have lingered a long time in Italy, for so late as the year 1001 a bronze serpent on the basillica of St. Ambrose was worshipped. De Gubernatis speaking of it says, "Some say it was the serpent Aesculapius, others Moses, others that it was the image of Christ; for us it is enough to remark that it was a mythological serpent before which the Milanese mothers offered their children when they suffered from worms, in order to relieve them," a practice which was finally suppressed by San Carlo. Moreover, there has persisted until recently what is called a snake festival in a little mountain church near Naples, where those participating carry snakes around their persons, the purpose of the festival being to preserve the participants from poison and sudden death and bring them good fortune. (Sozinskey).

The power of the sun over health and disease was long ago recognized in the old Chaldean hymn in which the sun is petitioned thus:

"Thou at thy coming cure the race of man;

Cause the ray of health to shine upon him;

Cure his disease."

Probably some feeling akin to that voiced in this way gave rise to the following beautiful passage in Malachi (4:2):

"The Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings."

As a purely medical symbol the serpent is meant to symbolize prudence; long ago men were enjoined to be "As wise as serpents" as well as harmless as doves. In India the serpent is still regarded as a symbol of every species of learning. It has also another medical meaning, namely, convalescence, for which there is afforded some ground in the remarkable change which it undergoes every spring from a state of lethargy to one of active life.

According to Ferguson, the experience of Moses and the Children of Israel with brazen serpents led to the first recorded worship paid to the serpent, which is also noteworthy, since the cause of this adoration is said to have been its intrinsic healing power. The prototype of the brazen serpent of Moses in latter times was the Good Genius, the Agathodaemon of the Greeks, which was regarded always with the greatest favor and usually accorded considerable power over disease.

The superstitious tendency to regard disease and death as the visitation of a more or less capricious act by some extra mundane power persists even to the present day. For example, in the Episcopal book of Common Prayer, it is stated, in the Order for the Visitation of the Sick, "Wherefore, whatsoever your sickness be, know you certainly that it is God's visitation," while for relief the following sentiment is formulated in prayer, "Lord look down from heaven, behold, visit and relieve these, thy servants," thus voicing the very ideas which were current among various peoples of remote antiquity and eliminating all possibility of such a thing as the regulation of disease or of sanitary medicine.