Serpent Worship in Asia
Serpent Worship in one form or another has appeared in every single culture in every corner of the Earth. The Serpent mounds of the American Indian, Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent and the carved-stone snakes of Central and South America, Python, the Great Snake of the Greeks, the Sacred Serpents of the Druids, Jörmungandr, the Midgard Serpent of Scandinavia, the Nagas of Burma, Siam, and Cambodia, the hooded Cobras of India, the Brazen Serpent of the Jews, the Mystic Serpent of Orpheus, the Serpents at the Oracle of Delphi, the Sacred Serpents preserved in the Egyptian Temples, the Uraeus coiled upon the foreheads of the Pharaohs, Queens, Priestesses and Priests, to name just a few.
- Nagas (Serpents in Sanscrit) of Indus (India).
- The earliest Mayans and their first Serpent kings, Caramaya and Naga Maya
- Later the Serpentine Kings Kukulcan and Quetzalcoatal creating the Itza Maya Culture of South America.
- The Lung Dragons of China, and an interesting fact is that an ancient Chinese term for dragon was Naga.
- Amarus and Con Ticci Viracocha of Peru.
- The Zohar is said to have passed from Adam to Noah and then to Abraham, who immigrated to Egypt. The Zohar or the Books of Splendor – were the Original texts of the Kabbalah. An earlier priest cult in Egypt was specifically formed to take care of the Royalty that went by the title of “Messah" or Crocodile Lords, who also lay claim to the Adam or Amen (Sun King) as being their Kamara. The early Egyptians who built the pyramids were called the Naga, which may be due to the influence of...
- The Olmec returning to North Africa from the lands of the Maya.
- The Azteca who absorbed the cultures and religions of Meso-America had the goddess Coatlcue she wore a skirt of snakes, she is often depicted as having two dragon heads.
- In the mythology of Sumeria the goddess Tiamat in her fury would destroy all who challenged her. All that is, but the Babylonian sun god, Marduk. In a celestial battle which took place in the heavens, Marduk slew Tiamat. Then, from Tiamuat’s dismembered body, he fashioned the heavens and the earth. From her dragon’s blood Marduk created man.
- Nidhogg is said to be the Dragon Father of an underground world known by the Norse as Niflheim.
Another ancient wisdom tradition from Aboriginal Australia, perhaps the oldest surviving culture of humanity perhaps 70,000 years old, describes the nature of unified consciousness as the Rainbow Snake: "Oneness is essence, purity, creativity, love, unlimited, unbounded energy. Many of the tribal stories refer to the Rainbow Snake which represents the weaving line of energy or consciousness that starts as total peace, changes vibration, and becomes color, sound, and form" (Morgan, "Mutant Message Down Under" p 149).
Link to more: http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/sociopol_brotherhoodsnake.htm
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/esp_sociopol_dragoncourt.htm
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/esp_sociopol_dragoncourt.htm
http://www.sacred-texts.com/etc/oph/oph00.htm
Secrets of the Serpent - Philip Gardner
http://books.google.com/books?id=Avp4ihGHsOMC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
The Shipwrecked Sailor
When Pharaoh Amen-em-het ruled Egypt in about the year 2000 BC he brought peace and prosperity to a country that had been torn by civil war and rebellion for nearly two hundred years. During his reign adventurers and traders went on many expeditions to the south - either up the Nile through Nubia and even as far as Ethiopia, or along the Red Sea and out into the Indian Ocean to the mysterious land of Punt, whence they brought back jewels and spices and other treasures.
The Royal Court, whether, it was in residence at Thebes or Memphis, was thronged with ships' captains and the leaders of expeditions, each with a tale to tell - and each anxious to win a commission from Pharaoh to command some royal venture on the strength of his past achievements.
One day such a wanderer stopped the Grand Vizier in the palace courtyard at Thebes, and said to him, 'My lord, harken to me a while. I come with costly gifts for Pharaoh, nor shall his counselors such as yourself be forgotten. Listen, and I will tell you of such adventures as have not been told: Pharaoh himself - life, health, strength be to him! - will reward you for bringing to his presence a man with such adventures to tell. I have been to a magic island in the sea far to the south - far beyond Nubia, to the south even of Ethiopia. I beg of you to tell Pharaoh that I am here and would tell my tale to him.'
The Grand Vizier was accustomed to such appeals, and he looked doubtfully at the wanderer and said, 'It seems to me that you speak foolishly and have only vain things to tell. Many men such as you think that a tall story will win them a commission from Pharaoh - but when they tell their tale they condemn themselves out of their own mouths. If what you have to tell is one of these, be sure that I shall have you thrown out of the palace. But if it is of sufficient interest, I may bring you before Pharaoh. Therefore speak on at your own risk, or else remain silent and trouble me no more.'
'I have such a tale to tell,' answered the wanderer, 'that I will risk your anger with an easy mind. When you have heard it, you will beg me to come before Pharaoh and tell it to him - even to the good god Pharaoh Amen-em-het who rules the world. Listen, then:
'I was on my way to the mines of Pharaoh in a great ship rowed by a hundred and fifty sailors who had seen heaven and earth and whose hearts were stronger than lions. We rowed and sailed for many days down the Red Sea and out into the ocean beyond.
'The captain and the steersman swore that they knew the signs of the weather and that the wind would not be strong but would waft us gently on our way. Nevertheless before long a tempest arose suddenly and drove us towards the land. As we drew near the shore the waves were eight cubits in height and they broke over the ship and dashed it upon the rocks. I seized a piece of wood and flung myself into the sea just as the ship ran aground: a moment later it was smashed to pieces and every man perished.
'But a great wave raised the board to which I clung high over the sharp rocks and cast me far up the shore, on level sand, and I was able to crawl into the shelter of the trees out of reach of the cruel, angry sea.
'When day dawned the tempest passed away and the warm sun shone out. I rose up to see where I was, giving thanks to the gods for my delivery when all the rest had perished. I was on an island with no other human being to be a companion to me. But such an island as no man has seen! The broad leaves of the thicket where I lay formed a roof over my head to shield me from the burning midday sun. When I grew hungry and looked about for food, I found all ready for me within easy reach: figs and grapes, all manner of good herbs, berries and grain, melons of all kinds, fishes and birds for the taking.
'At first I satisfied my hunger on the fruits around me. And on the third day I dug a pit and kindled a fire in it on which I made first of all a burnt offering to the gods, and then cooked meat and fish for myself.
'As I sat there comfortably after an excellent meal I suddenly heard a noise like thunder. Nearly beside myself with terror, I flung myself on the ground, thinking that it was some great tidal wave come to engulf the island: for the trees were lashing as if at the breath of the tempest and the earth shook beneath me.
"Moving towards me I saw a serpent thirty cubits long with a beard of more than two cubits." 'But no wave came, and at last I cautiously raised my head and looked about me. Never shall I forget the horror of that moment. Moving towards me I saw a serpent thirty cubits long with a beard of more than two cubits. Its body was covered with golden scales and the scales round its eyes shaded off into blue as pure as lapis lazuli.
'The serpent coiled up its whole length in front of where I lay with my face on the ground, reared its head high above me, and said: "What has brought you, what has brought you here, little one? Say, what has brought you to my island? If you do not tell me at once I will show you what it is to be- burnt with fire, what is it to be burnt utterly to nothing and become a thing invisible. Speak quickly, I am waiting to hear what I have not heard before, some new thing!"
'Then the serpent took me in his huge jaws and carried me away to his cave, and put me down there without hurting me. Yes, though he had held me in his sharp teeth he had not bitten me at all; I was still whole.
'Then he said again, "What has, brought you, what has brought you here, little one? Say what has brought you to this island in the midst of the sea with the waves breaking on all sides of it?"
'At this I managed to speak, crouching before him and bowing my face to the ground as if before Pharaoh himself.
'"I sailed by command of Amen-em-het, Pharaoh of Egypt, in a great ship one hundred and fifty cubits in length to bring treasure from the mines of the south. But a great tempest broke upon us and dashed the ship upon the rocks so that all who sailed in her perished except for myself. As for me, I seized a piece of wood and was lifted on it over the rocks and cast upon this island by a mighty wave, and I have been here for three days. So behold me, your suppliant, brought hither by a wave of the sea."
'Then the serpent said to me, "Fear not, fear not, little one, nor let your face show sadness. Since you have come to my island in this way, when all your companions perished, it is because some god has preserved and sent you. For surely Amon-Re has set you thus upon this island of the blessed where nothing is lacking, which is filled with all good things. And now I will tell you of the future: here in this isle shall you remain while one month adds itself to another until four months have passed. Then a ship shall come, a ship of Egypt, and it shall carry you home in safety, and at length you shall die in your own city and be laid to rest in the tomb which you have prepared.
'"And now I will tell you of this island. For it is pleasant to hear strange things after fear has been taken away from you - and you will indeed have a tale to tell when you return home and kneel before Pharaoh, your lord and master. Know then that I dwell here with my brethren and my children about me; we are seventy-five serpents in all, children and kindred. And but one stranger has ever come amongst us: a lovely girl who appeared strangely and on whom the fire of heaven fell and who was turned into ashes. As for you, I do not think that heaven holds any thunderbolts for one who has lived through such dangers. It is revealed to me that, if you dwell here in patience, you shall return in the fullness of time and hold your wife and children in your arms once more."
"...if what you have said to me happens indeed, I shall come before Pharaoh and tell him about you, and speak to him of your greatness." 'Then I bowed before him, thanking him for his words of comfort, and said, "All that I have told you is true, and if what you have said to me happens indeed, I shall come before Pharaoh and tell him about you, and speak to him of your greatness. And I will bring as offerings to you sacred oils and perfumes, and such incense as is offered to the gods in their temples. Moreover I shall tell him of all the wonders of this isle, and I shall sacrifice asses to you, and Pharaoh shall send out a ship filled with the riches of Egypt as presents to your majesty."
'The king serpent laughed at my words, saying, "Truly you are not rich in perfumes - for here in this island I have more than in all the land of Punt. Only the sacred oil which you promise me is scarce here - yet you will never bring it, for when you are gone this island will vanish away and you shall never more see it. Yet doubtless the gods will reveal it in time to come to some other wanderer."
'So I dwelt happily in that enchanted island, and the four months seemed all too short. When they drew to a close I saw a ship sailing over the smooth sea towards me, and I climbed into a high tree to see better what manner of men sailed in it.
And when I perceived that they were men of Egypt, I hastened to the home of the serpent king and told him. But he knew already more than I did myself, and said to me, "Farewell, brave wanderer. Return in safety to your home and may my blessing go with you."
'Then I bowed before him and thanked him, and he gave me gifts of precious perfumes - of cassia and sweet woods, of kohl and cypress, of incense, of ivory and of other precious things. And when I had set these upon the ship and the sailors would have landed, the island seemed to move away from them, floating on the sea. Then night fell suddenly, and when the moon shone out there was no island in sight but only the open waves.
'So we sailed north and in the second month we came to Egypt, and I have made haste to cross the desert from the sea to Thebes. Therefore, I pray you, lead me before Pharaoh, for I long to tell him of my adventures and lay at his feet the gifts of the King of the Serpents, and beg that he will make me commander of a royal ship to sail once more into the ocean that washes the shores of Punt.'
When the wanderer's tale was ended, the Grand Vizier laughed heartily, crying, 'Whether or not I believe your adventures, you have told a tale such as delights the heart of Pharaoh - life, health, strength be to him! Therefore come with me at once, and be sure of a rich reward: to you who tell the tale, and to me who brings before him the teller of the tale.'
So the wanderer passed into the presence of the good god Pharaoh Amen-em-het, and Pharaoh delighted in the story of the shipwrecked sailor so much that his chief scribe Ameni-amen-aa was set to write it down upon a roll of papyrus where it may be read to this very day.
When Pharaoh Amen-em-het ruled Egypt in about the year 2000 BC he brought peace and prosperity to a country that had been torn by civil war and rebellion for nearly two hundred years. During his reign adventurers and traders went on many expeditions to the south - either up the Nile through Nubia and even as far as Ethiopia, or along the Red Sea and out into the Indian Ocean to the mysterious land of Punt, whence they brought back jewels and spices and other treasures.
The Royal Court, whether, it was in residence at Thebes or Memphis, was thronged with ships' captains and the leaders of expeditions, each with a tale to tell - and each anxious to win a commission from Pharaoh to command some royal venture on the strength of his past achievements.
One day such a wanderer stopped the Grand Vizier in the palace courtyard at Thebes, and said to him, 'My lord, harken to me a while. I come with costly gifts for Pharaoh, nor shall his counselors such as yourself be forgotten. Listen, and I will tell you of such adventures as have not been told: Pharaoh himself - life, health, strength be to him! - will reward you for bringing to his presence a man with such adventures to tell. I have been to a magic island in the sea far to the south - far beyond Nubia, to the south even of Ethiopia. I beg of you to tell Pharaoh that I am here and would tell my tale to him.'
The Grand Vizier was accustomed to such appeals, and he looked doubtfully at the wanderer and said, 'It seems to me that you speak foolishly and have only vain things to tell. Many men such as you think that a tall story will win them a commission from Pharaoh - but when they tell their tale they condemn themselves out of their own mouths. If what you have to tell is one of these, be sure that I shall have you thrown out of the palace. But if it is of sufficient interest, I may bring you before Pharaoh. Therefore speak on at your own risk, or else remain silent and trouble me no more.'
'I have such a tale to tell,' answered the wanderer, 'that I will risk your anger with an easy mind. When you have heard it, you will beg me to come before Pharaoh and tell it to him - even to the good god Pharaoh Amen-em-het who rules the world. Listen, then:
'I was on my way to the mines of Pharaoh in a great ship rowed by a hundred and fifty sailors who had seen heaven and earth and whose hearts were stronger than lions. We rowed and sailed for many days down the Red Sea and out into the ocean beyond.
'The captain and the steersman swore that they knew the signs of the weather and that the wind would not be strong but would waft us gently on our way. Nevertheless before long a tempest arose suddenly and drove us towards the land. As we drew near the shore the waves were eight cubits in height and they broke over the ship and dashed it upon the rocks. I seized a piece of wood and flung myself into the sea just as the ship ran aground: a moment later it was smashed to pieces and every man perished.
'But a great wave raised the board to which I clung high over the sharp rocks and cast me far up the shore, on level sand, and I was able to crawl into the shelter of the trees out of reach of the cruel, angry sea.
'When day dawned the tempest passed away and the warm sun shone out. I rose up to see where I was, giving thanks to the gods for my delivery when all the rest had perished. I was on an island with no other human being to be a companion to me. But such an island as no man has seen! The broad leaves of the thicket where I lay formed a roof over my head to shield me from the burning midday sun. When I grew hungry and looked about for food, I found all ready for me within easy reach: figs and grapes, all manner of good herbs, berries and grain, melons of all kinds, fishes and birds for the taking.
'At first I satisfied my hunger on the fruits around me. And on the third day I dug a pit and kindled a fire in it on which I made first of all a burnt offering to the gods, and then cooked meat and fish for myself.
'As I sat there comfortably after an excellent meal I suddenly heard a noise like thunder. Nearly beside myself with terror, I flung myself on the ground, thinking that it was some great tidal wave come to engulf the island: for the trees were lashing as if at the breath of the tempest and the earth shook beneath me.
"Moving towards me I saw a serpent thirty cubits long with a beard of more than two cubits." 'But no wave came, and at last I cautiously raised my head and looked about me. Never shall I forget the horror of that moment. Moving towards me I saw a serpent thirty cubits long with a beard of more than two cubits. Its body was covered with golden scales and the scales round its eyes shaded off into blue as pure as lapis lazuli.
'The serpent coiled up its whole length in front of where I lay with my face on the ground, reared its head high above me, and said: "What has brought you, what has brought you here, little one? Say, what has brought you to my island? If you do not tell me at once I will show you what it is to be- burnt with fire, what is it to be burnt utterly to nothing and become a thing invisible. Speak quickly, I am waiting to hear what I have not heard before, some new thing!"
'Then the serpent took me in his huge jaws and carried me away to his cave, and put me down there without hurting me. Yes, though he had held me in his sharp teeth he had not bitten me at all; I was still whole.
'Then he said again, "What has, brought you, what has brought you here, little one? Say what has brought you to this island in the midst of the sea with the waves breaking on all sides of it?"
'At this I managed to speak, crouching before him and bowing my face to the ground as if before Pharaoh himself.
'"I sailed by command of Amen-em-het, Pharaoh of Egypt, in a great ship one hundred and fifty cubits in length to bring treasure from the mines of the south. But a great tempest broke upon us and dashed the ship upon the rocks so that all who sailed in her perished except for myself. As for me, I seized a piece of wood and was lifted on it over the rocks and cast upon this island by a mighty wave, and I have been here for three days. So behold me, your suppliant, brought hither by a wave of the sea."
'Then the serpent said to me, "Fear not, fear not, little one, nor let your face show sadness. Since you have come to my island in this way, when all your companions perished, it is because some god has preserved and sent you. For surely Amon-Re has set you thus upon this island of the blessed where nothing is lacking, which is filled with all good things. And now I will tell you of the future: here in this isle shall you remain while one month adds itself to another until four months have passed. Then a ship shall come, a ship of Egypt, and it shall carry you home in safety, and at length you shall die in your own city and be laid to rest in the tomb which you have prepared.
'"And now I will tell you of this island. For it is pleasant to hear strange things after fear has been taken away from you - and you will indeed have a tale to tell when you return home and kneel before Pharaoh, your lord and master. Know then that I dwell here with my brethren and my children about me; we are seventy-five serpents in all, children and kindred. And but one stranger has ever come amongst us: a lovely girl who appeared strangely and on whom the fire of heaven fell and who was turned into ashes. As for you, I do not think that heaven holds any thunderbolts for one who has lived through such dangers. It is revealed to me that, if you dwell here in patience, you shall return in the fullness of time and hold your wife and children in your arms once more."
"...if what you have said to me happens indeed, I shall come before Pharaoh and tell him about you, and speak to him of your greatness." 'Then I bowed before him, thanking him for his words of comfort, and said, "All that I have told you is true, and if what you have said to me happens indeed, I shall come before Pharaoh and tell him about you, and speak to him of your greatness. And I will bring as offerings to you sacred oils and perfumes, and such incense as is offered to the gods in their temples. Moreover I shall tell him of all the wonders of this isle, and I shall sacrifice asses to you, and Pharaoh shall send out a ship filled with the riches of Egypt as presents to your majesty."
'The king serpent laughed at my words, saying, "Truly you are not rich in perfumes - for here in this island I have more than in all the land of Punt. Only the sacred oil which you promise me is scarce here - yet you will never bring it, for when you are gone this island will vanish away and you shall never more see it. Yet doubtless the gods will reveal it in time to come to some other wanderer."
'So I dwelt happily in that enchanted island, and the four months seemed all too short. When they drew to a close I saw a ship sailing over the smooth sea towards me, and I climbed into a high tree to see better what manner of men sailed in it.
And when I perceived that they were men of Egypt, I hastened to the home of the serpent king and told him. But he knew already more than I did myself, and said to me, "Farewell, brave wanderer. Return in safety to your home and may my blessing go with you."
'Then I bowed before him and thanked him, and he gave me gifts of precious perfumes - of cassia and sweet woods, of kohl and cypress, of incense, of ivory and of other precious things. And when I had set these upon the ship and the sailors would have landed, the island seemed to move away from them, floating on the sea. Then night fell suddenly, and when the moon shone out there was no island in sight but only the open waves.
'So we sailed north and in the second month we came to Egypt, and I have made haste to cross the desert from the sea to Thebes. Therefore, I pray you, lead me before Pharaoh, for I long to tell him of my adventures and lay at his feet the gifts of the King of the Serpents, and beg that he will make me commander of a royal ship to sail once more into the ocean that washes the shores of Punt.'
When the wanderer's tale was ended, the Grand Vizier laughed heartily, crying, 'Whether or not I believe your adventures, you have told a tale such as delights the heart of Pharaoh - life, health, strength be to him! Therefore come with me at once, and be sure of a rich reward: to you who tell the tale, and to me who brings before him the teller of the tale.'
So the wanderer passed into the presence of the good god Pharaoh Amen-em-het, and Pharaoh delighted in the story of the shipwrecked sailor so much that his chief scribe Ameni-amen-aa was set to write it down upon a roll of papyrus where it may be read to this very day.
MARDUK: The snake-dragon-sungod from ancient Babylon http://v666.wordpress.com/2007/03/05/marduk-the-snake-dragon-sungod-from-ancient-babylon/
In Babylon a huge complex (the ‘Esagila‘) was built in honour of Marduk; also the tower of Babel -called ‘E-termen-an-ki’ - was dedicated to him. The top-floor of this tower -it’s translation means ”House of the foundation of heaven on Earth’ was a temple for Marduk (=’Bel’).
We know Marduk -symbolised by the dragon-snake- also as ‘the trinity sungod’ consisting of ‘the man-god’ Baal or Bel, ‘the female-god’ Astarte or Isis/Ishtar and ‘the child-god’ and reincartion of Baal called Tammuz or Horus.
They are also symbolized by ‘the eye of Horus’ pictured as an eye in a pyramid; the Roman-catholic church, masonry and Kabbalah use this symbol for their organisations. It says a lot about their beliefs and fundament of their beliefs…
In the Vatican-museum the Vatican proudly displays and cherishes its Crest; the snake-dragon of Marduk. It is also their oldest piece. Roman Emperor Heliogabalus (218-222) introduced the Akitu-festival in honour of Mardruk during his reign in the third Century.
In the following early fourth Century Emperor Constantinus formally founded the Roman-catholic church, that carries the Vatican-Crest of Marduk; clearly a church based on the trinity-sungod from ancient Babylon!!!
Everything the Roman-catholic Church is built on is also the foundation of the European Community. The crest of the EC -the blue flag with the 12 stars on it in a circle- represent ‘the virgin’ or ‘Cybele’; also known as Astarte or ‘the goddess’. The female ‘lady liberty’ of the trinity sungod from Babylon…
It was Arsene Heitz that created this EC-symbol. He clearly tells us why and how he chose this symbol…
The connection between the European foundations and Babylon goes ever further than Catholic influences, flags and symbols…
The European Parliament-building in Strassbourg is a copy of the Tower of Babel that was painted by the Belgian painter Breugel. And that the EP really means bussiness with the Babylonian Tower is also illustrated by their poster with a modern version of the Tower of Babel on it; above the building a set of satan-stars in the sky… Beyond any doubt this states what their intentions are with Europe: finishing what has started more than 3.000 years ago in Ancient Babylon…!
In Babylon a huge complex (the ‘Esagila‘) was built in honour of Marduk; also the tower of Babel -called ‘E-termen-an-ki’ - was dedicated to him. The top-floor of this tower -it’s translation means ”House of the foundation of heaven on Earth’ was a temple for Marduk (=’Bel’).
We know Marduk -symbolised by the dragon-snake- also as ‘the trinity sungod’ consisting of ‘the man-god’ Baal or Bel, ‘the female-god’ Astarte or Isis/Ishtar and ‘the child-god’ and reincartion of Baal called Tammuz or Horus.
They are also symbolized by ‘the eye of Horus’ pictured as an eye in a pyramid; the Roman-catholic church, masonry and Kabbalah use this symbol for their organisations. It says a lot about their beliefs and fundament of their beliefs…
In the Vatican-museum the Vatican proudly displays and cherishes its Crest; the snake-dragon of Marduk. It is also their oldest piece. Roman Emperor Heliogabalus (218-222) introduced the Akitu-festival in honour of Mardruk during his reign in the third Century.
In the following early fourth Century Emperor Constantinus formally founded the Roman-catholic church, that carries the Vatican-Crest of Marduk; clearly a church based on the trinity-sungod from ancient Babylon!!!
Everything the Roman-catholic Church is built on is also the foundation of the European Community. The crest of the EC -the blue flag with the 12 stars on it in a circle- represent ‘the virgin’ or ‘Cybele’; also known as Astarte or ‘the goddess’. The female ‘lady liberty’ of the trinity sungod from Babylon…
It was Arsene Heitz that created this EC-symbol. He clearly tells us why and how he chose this symbol…
The connection between the European foundations and Babylon goes ever further than Catholic influences, flags and symbols…
The European Parliament-building in Strassbourg is a copy of the Tower of Babel that was painted by the Belgian painter Breugel. And that the EP really means bussiness with the Babylonian Tower is also illustrated by their poster with a modern version of the Tower of Babel on it; above the building a set of satan-stars in the sky… Beyond any doubt this states what their intentions are with Europe: finishing what has started more than 3.000 years ago in Ancient Babylon…!
Return of the Serpents of Wisdom
http://books.google.com/books?id=46Hfa0Ss-kIC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
SERPENT WORSHIP
http://books.google.com/books?id=R8qAAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=serpent+worship&source=bl&ots=PvN6nnKCEy&sig=OOhf8Gq9I-TSO-oCNXlB9O5cpbE&hl=en&ei=jVS_TcjfMpDWtQPJs4nQAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=14&sqi=2&ved=0CGEQ6AEwDQ#v=onepage&q&f=false
Tree and Serpent Worship: Illustrations of Mythology and Art in India in the ... By James Fergusson
http://books.google.com/books?id=2gd8A31DLkQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=serpent+worship&source=bl&ots=-7ddk1lkI7&sig=5vqu_iytNdhs_8lfop6qSAkyGFs&hl=en&ei=6la_TbnlKo2WsgPTlaDQAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CDcQ6AEwBTge#v=onepage&q&f=false
The sun and the serpent: a contribution to the history of serpent-worship By Charles Frederick Oldham
http://books.google.com/books?id=WqlZAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=serpent+worship&source=bl&ots=PDwdE4kDqr&sig=C5vmzShKYExNsTKYGQB6J9k8lkk&hl=en&ei=I16_TZLyK4G-sQPtuY3QAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CE8Q6AEwBzg8#v=onepage&q&f=false
SERPENT WORSHIP
http://books.google.com/books?id=R8qAAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=serpent+worship&source=bl&ots=PvN6nnKCEy&sig=OOhf8Gq9I-TSO-oCNXlB9O5cpbE&hl=en&ei=jVS_TcjfMpDWtQPJs4nQAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=14&sqi=2&ved=0CGEQ6AEwDQ#v=onepage&q&f=false
Tree and Serpent Worship: Illustrations of Mythology and Art in India in the ... By James Fergusson
http://books.google.com/books?id=2gd8A31DLkQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=serpent+worship&source=bl&ots=-7ddk1lkI7&sig=5vqu_iytNdhs_8lfop6qSAkyGFs&hl=en&ei=6la_TbnlKo2WsgPTlaDQAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CDcQ6AEwBTge#v=onepage&q&f=false
The sun and the serpent: a contribution to the history of serpent-worship By Charles Frederick Oldham
http://books.google.com/books?id=WqlZAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=serpent+worship&source=bl&ots=PDwdE4kDqr&sig=C5vmzShKYExNsTKYGQB6J9k8lkk&hl=en&ei=I16_TZLyK4G-sQPtuY3QAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CE8Q6AEwBzg8#v=onepage&q&f=false
For dozens of millenia, even before there was any written History, our Ancestors had worshiped the most prominent and powerful forces of Nature: The Sun, the winds, the Sea and so on. Next to them, they have also worshiped a wide variety of Animals – of which the most prominent of all, so it seems, has always been the Worship of the Serpent. As Mundkur (at "The Cult of the Serpent" – the following is quoted from "The Serpent Symbol in the Ancient Near East", page 12) puts it: "From the immemorial man's imagination has turned the animal into a creature of Fantasy, including hybrids that caricature its real ophidian qualities. These include the bearded Serpents of ancient Egyptian and Greek religion; the human-bodied Cobras with multiple fused hoods; The Nagas of Hindu mythology; the horned, winged, hairy, feathered, or Fire-spiting species of fables and legend; the basilisk; the Dragon; the anthropomorph emblematized by no more than a bifid tongue, Serpent's tail, scales, or behavioral traits that are allegedly ophidian […] All these are Serpents".
And Banerjee determines, that "Of all the forms of Animal-Worship, the worship of Serpents became most popular throughout the length and breadth of the Ancient World. The wide diffusion of Serpent Worship, or the Naga Cult, is explicable by the fact, that Serpents occur in every part of the World"… ("Early Indian Religions", Chapter Four, page 94). And Augustus Barth mentions, that "…the Serpent-Religions of India form a complex whole and as such is not accounted for viewing it as a simple worship of deprecation. We can distinguish from : (i) the direct Adoration of the animal, the most formidable and mysterious of all the enemies of men; (ii) worship of the Deities of the Waters, Springs, and Rivers, symbolized by the waving form of the Serpent; (iii) conceptions of the same kind as that of Vedic Ahi and connected clearly with the great myth of the storm and the struggle of light with darkness". (Augustus Barth, "Religions of India", page 166 ff. – quoted @ P. Banerjee, "Early Indian Religions", Chapter Four: "The Naga Cult", page 97) All throughout the World, we can still find evidence of this Faith – remains of which have even survived, little here little there, up until our own modernistic time. From the Great Nagas of India and Burma to Ancient Celtic designs in the British Isles. From Chinese fearsome Dragons to the Goddess `Hathor, Grand Protector of the Ancient Egyptian Pharoes.
From the Serafim at early Biblical Jerusalem to Quetzalkoatl, the bearded Human-Snake God of the Aztecs in 1500 AD's Meso-America, from pre-Shintoistic Japan to Ancient Mesopotamia – the Serpent Worship and symbolism is present just about everywhere there is any kind whatsoever of human life present. One of the Bible's first Stories, of course, is about the Serpent at the Garden of `Eden. The Story in its known, familiar form, is anti-Serpent-worship but it would not be unfounded to assume, that it was actually an adaptation of earlier Story – which painfully had not prevailed – and which was representing a somewhat different approach. It is also interesting to see, how the Bible bothers especially to make it "clear and obvious", that the Snake had been created, among with all other being, by the biblical god, yehovah. Same approach it uses against "ha-taninnim ha-gdholim" ("the large crocodiles"), which are known to represent a different Divinity – the one of the Mesopotamian Tiameth. Also, the name of the Woman at the Garden of `Eden Story - `Hava – apparently does not mean – as the Bible unsuccessfully tries to persuade us – that she was "Em kol `hay" ("The Mother of all that is alive", but rather from the root, of the Aramaic word for Serpent: "`hivya".
We do also know of the very widely practiced Israeli and Judaic Serpent Worship by the brief mention of `Hizkiyahu's action, at around 700 BC, who destroyed the copper-made icon of the Serpent, supposedly made by Moses in the desert, since up till that time, the People of Israel had been making offering to Him – which, of course, contradicted the newly arising jewish monotheistic faith – which was starting to take root just about that time, and which had claimed yehovah to be "the one and only real god". However, the notion of Serpent-worship, apparently, persisted for centuries more, in the form of the Serafim – which, as it seems, were no else, than Flying Snakes, enhanced with four legs and two wings = Serpents which are Angels, which the High Priest sees at the holiest of holly, the most sacrosanct and secretive place inside the Temple in Jerusalem, in the holiest and most sacred of days: Yom ha-Kippurim ("The Day of Pardons"). And such, apparently, are the Angels seen by the Great Prophet Yesha`ayahu, who claimes they have no less, than "six wings each".
In Tel-Dan, at Israel's Northern tip, sacred Menorahs (Seven Wicks Lamps), decorated with images of Serpents, were found, and the Serpent-Symbolism is well known to be connected with the worship of the Cana`anite High Goddess and God: Ashera and Ba`al. Clear signs of a serpent-worship can be found elsewhere. For example, the Egyptians had worshipped the Goddess `Hathor, whose correlative animal has been the Snake, and a Serpent had decorated the Pharaos' Crown. There had been only a brief stop to that, of course, under the monotheistic reform of Akhenaton's rule, after which the Old Faith had been restored, stronger and probably more vital than ever. On a completely different part of the World, in Japan, one of the most ancient origins of the Japanese people, the Isumo Tribe, had an agricultural Religion, which one of the main symbles had been the Snake. Far away again, in Ancient Attica, Greece, the syncretic Cult of Zeus Melichios had represented the powerful King of Gods as a Serpent – maybe of the Underworld? – and also Athena had been, at least for a while, identified with the benevolent Power of the Serpent.
The Greek Cult of the Dead had adopted the Snake as Both a symble for Fertility – and for death (a duality, by the way, which is an recurring notion, throughout this entire Universe of Serpent-worship throughout the Entire World). Also the Oracle in Delphi, had originally been in the possession of a Serpent-Goddess, before Apollo slained her and claimed it for his own. But probably the most prominent case of Serpent-worship, are the Indian Nagas – which arrived, among other places, also to Burma. It is foremost in India, after all, where the notion of Nalla Pambu = a Good Snake – has always been most prominent.
Evidence of Serpent-worship can already be found at the Ancient, Dravidian(?) civilization, an Animistic civilization, that had worshipped various aspects of Nature, as well as the Mother Goddess, and which had flourished and prospered by the Indus river's Valley, at approximately the later half of the third millenium BC. But there, the Serpent Lord Himself appears, sometimes, to be a devotee – may be to a Higher Naga? His Parent, perhaps? Could there have been an Entire Pantheon of Serpent-Divinities, on a certain stage in the Past?
In India, the Serpent symble was connected also with Trees, that had grown intertwined. Is it possible, somehow, that there is a connection here with the myth of the Garden of `Eden and the Tree of Knowledge? Then, as the Aryans swept from the North, the fight between them, and the Native population of India, can be seen, reflected, at the various tales about the fight for Universal-domination between the Gods, the "Devas", and the resident Nagas. (An interesting point would be to mention, that their notion had been to identify the Nagas with Asuras – which, according to the Vedas, are the "Anti-Gods" and daemons.
Now, coming to check the Persian Zoroastrian faith, the "real God" is Ahura Mazda – while the Devas are the daemons, the "pishacas", the "Anti-God". Could there then be link, between Naga and Ahura Mazda, or is it just some sort of a co-incidence?) But, however, the more the two Peoples had resided next to each other, just like the arriving Aryans have innevitably become more and more dark-skinned, the more the Naga Serpents have entered their belief-system as well – and in the Rigveda-Samhita, the two voices are being heard – both of that, who opposed the Lord (which tells of indra's fight, against ahi-vritra – a Symbol, probably, to the great war, between the aryan invaders, who worshipped their pantheon of "Devas" and the local, Dravida inhabitants, who worshipped Nagas), and that, which views the Naga properly, as a Good, Benevolent God, at the Ahi-Budhnya – which was created, perhaps, by some Enlightened Brahmin, or one, which had worked towards a recouncilment of these both faiths into One?
Anyway, whatever may be the case, the One Cult, which has influenced most significantly Neo-Brahminic Religion, was the Cult of Naga. A Beautiful expression of this (later?) Brahminic View can be found at the Maitrayani Samhita 2.7.15 (translated as it is at "Religions in Various Cultures – Studies in Religion and Culture", page 96): "Homage be to the Snakes which so ever move along the Earth, which are in the Sky and in Heaven; homage be to those Snakes, which are the arrows of sorcerers and of Tree-Spirits which lie in holes; homage be to those Snakes which are in the Brightness of Heaven, which are in the Rays of the Sun, which have made their abodes in the Water, homage be to those Snakes".
Shiva wears Snakes, upon his head and all over his arms. Vishnu sometimes appears as fighting Snakes – as, when as Krishna, he helps Arjuna to put fire to the Khandava Forest, Home to the Naga Takshaka and his Son, Ashvasena), sometimes is their Ally (like with She`sha – The Celectial Seven-headed Snake, supporting the World from below, by the grace of Brahma, helping Vi`sh`nu to create and recreate it and is curling around Vi`sh`nu to protect and assist him, just as he appears cyrcling and protecting the buddha.
Krishna's Brother, Balaraama, is HIS Incarnation), sometimes – their Creator (Udakeyshaya), and sometimes – he is even even one of them himself (Naaraayana)!! This same Duality, so it seems, in the human view of Snakes and their worship, runs through the Entire Naga-related Literature, Prays etc., both in India's Cultural Sphere and all around the Globe. By the Classic Sanskrit era (around 500 BC – the time of Mahavira and Buddha), the Naga-worship has become so accepted and common that the Kings of the Ganga's two most important and powerful Kingdom – Magadha and Koshala – along with their Kshatriya (warrior) clans – claimed to be the descendants of Nagas and to be protected by them; and, when it comes to Buddhism, Nagas receive an Honourable place: It is a Naga Himself, who protects Buddha and defends him, by hugging him from all his sides – in an Asana not unlike Vishnu's, sitting upon the Great World Serpent Shesha – and the High King of the West – one of the Four Lokapala ("Kings of Directions"), residing at the Marvellous Pardessim by the Slopes of Mount Meru – is no other than Virupak`sha, the Red King of the Nagas.
Although, all these facts did not stop Anorahta, the king who introduced Buddhism into Burma by the 11th Century AD, from persecuting the Naga-Cult into an extinction, as "non-Buddhist". In an apparently old Story, Naga Padmanaabha is the most Perfect and Gracious Scholar, gifted with all the Best of possible Virtues, such as Generousity, Wisdom, Caring for other people's Wellbeing, Love of Knowledge, Truthfulness, Honesty and Visible Grace. And, having achieved this Great state of Sanctity, a Great Brahmin, sick of the World's unhonourable affairs, comes to learn his Way and to become like him. An interesting point here – which does, probably, point out his antiquity – is Naga Padmanaabha's Alliance with the Sun-God, who lends him his Chariot – a point which deserves a most special look at it. In later Indian and Burmese folk-tales, the Sun and the Serpent are swore enemies: the Sun is above, the Serpent is underneath – so, what could be more further away – and thus, according to some, remote and hostile?
But yet, in Ancient traditions throughout the World, the relation between the Two is quite different. In fact, many Mythologies identify the Sun With the Serpent, as One, Single, extremely Powerful and Benevolent, Life-giving Force = the Sun, which sends her Loving Serpents-Hands (rays) to carress the Earth and its inhabitants and to bless it all with Life. In the "Sun and Serpent Lore of Bengal", for example, Mr. Bhattacharyya writes, that "Though the Sun and the Serpent are the different Objects of Nature of diverse characters yet it will be seen that there are some common qualities between both of them according to popular belief. Both are considered the producers of Rain […] both confer upon boon of a son to barren women.
Both of them offer boon to the maids to have good husbands and happy Homes after their marriages. Both of them are cure-Deities". (there, pp. 126-127) So, as we can see, from all the above data, we can begin to carefully craft out a still somewhat-vague, but yet clearer and clearer picture: At Humanity's Early dawn – probably as early as before our Ancestors' migration from Africa, approximately 70,000 years ago – worshipped our Ancestors to many Deities, but most prominent among them, had been the Sun above and the Serpent below, sometimes merged into One Single identity = the Great SunSerpent Goddess, Gracious giver of Life and the Grand maintainance, of all the order of Creation as a Whole. http://srtertger.obolog.com/serpent-worship-humanity-s-first-religion-776475
And Banerjee determines, that "Of all the forms of Animal-Worship, the worship of Serpents became most popular throughout the length and breadth of the Ancient World. The wide diffusion of Serpent Worship, or the Naga Cult, is explicable by the fact, that Serpents occur in every part of the World"… ("Early Indian Religions", Chapter Four, page 94). And Augustus Barth mentions, that "…the Serpent-Religions of India form a complex whole and as such is not accounted for viewing it as a simple worship of deprecation. We can distinguish from : (i) the direct Adoration of the animal, the most formidable and mysterious of all the enemies of men; (ii) worship of the Deities of the Waters, Springs, and Rivers, symbolized by the waving form of the Serpent; (iii) conceptions of the same kind as that of Vedic Ahi and connected clearly with the great myth of the storm and the struggle of light with darkness". (Augustus Barth, "Religions of India", page 166 ff. – quoted @ P. Banerjee, "Early Indian Religions", Chapter Four: "The Naga Cult", page 97) All throughout the World, we can still find evidence of this Faith – remains of which have even survived, little here little there, up until our own modernistic time. From the Great Nagas of India and Burma to Ancient Celtic designs in the British Isles. From Chinese fearsome Dragons to the Goddess `Hathor, Grand Protector of the Ancient Egyptian Pharoes.
From the Serafim at early Biblical Jerusalem to Quetzalkoatl, the bearded Human-Snake God of the Aztecs in 1500 AD's Meso-America, from pre-Shintoistic Japan to Ancient Mesopotamia – the Serpent Worship and symbolism is present just about everywhere there is any kind whatsoever of human life present. One of the Bible's first Stories, of course, is about the Serpent at the Garden of `Eden. The Story in its known, familiar form, is anti-Serpent-worship but it would not be unfounded to assume, that it was actually an adaptation of earlier Story – which painfully had not prevailed – and which was representing a somewhat different approach. It is also interesting to see, how the Bible bothers especially to make it "clear and obvious", that the Snake had been created, among with all other being, by the biblical god, yehovah. Same approach it uses against "ha-taninnim ha-gdholim" ("the large crocodiles"), which are known to represent a different Divinity – the one of the Mesopotamian Tiameth. Also, the name of the Woman at the Garden of `Eden Story - `Hava – apparently does not mean – as the Bible unsuccessfully tries to persuade us – that she was "Em kol `hay" ("The Mother of all that is alive", but rather from the root, of the Aramaic word for Serpent: "`hivya".
We do also know of the very widely practiced Israeli and Judaic Serpent Worship by the brief mention of `Hizkiyahu's action, at around 700 BC, who destroyed the copper-made icon of the Serpent, supposedly made by Moses in the desert, since up till that time, the People of Israel had been making offering to Him – which, of course, contradicted the newly arising jewish monotheistic faith – which was starting to take root just about that time, and which had claimed yehovah to be "the one and only real god". However, the notion of Serpent-worship, apparently, persisted for centuries more, in the form of the Serafim – which, as it seems, were no else, than Flying Snakes, enhanced with four legs and two wings = Serpents which are Angels, which the High Priest sees at the holiest of holly, the most sacrosanct and secretive place inside the Temple in Jerusalem, in the holiest and most sacred of days: Yom ha-Kippurim ("The Day of Pardons"). And such, apparently, are the Angels seen by the Great Prophet Yesha`ayahu, who claimes they have no less, than "six wings each".
In Tel-Dan, at Israel's Northern tip, sacred Menorahs (Seven Wicks Lamps), decorated with images of Serpents, were found, and the Serpent-Symbolism is well known to be connected with the worship of the Cana`anite High Goddess and God: Ashera and Ba`al. Clear signs of a serpent-worship can be found elsewhere. For example, the Egyptians had worshipped the Goddess `Hathor, whose correlative animal has been the Snake, and a Serpent had decorated the Pharaos' Crown. There had been only a brief stop to that, of course, under the monotheistic reform of Akhenaton's rule, after which the Old Faith had been restored, stronger and probably more vital than ever. On a completely different part of the World, in Japan, one of the most ancient origins of the Japanese people, the Isumo Tribe, had an agricultural Religion, which one of the main symbles had been the Snake. Far away again, in Ancient Attica, Greece, the syncretic Cult of Zeus Melichios had represented the powerful King of Gods as a Serpent – maybe of the Underworld? – and also Athena had been, at least for a while, identified with the benevolent Power of the Serpent.
The Greek Cult of the Dead had adopted the Snake as Both a symble for Fertility – and for death (a duality, by the way, which is an recurring notion, throughout this entire Universe of Serpent-worship throughout the Entire World). Also the Oracle in Delphi, had originally been in the possession of a Serpent-Goddess, before Apollo slained her and claimed it for his own. But probably the most prominent case of Serpent-worship, are the Indian Nagas – which arrived, among other places, also to Burma. It is foremost in India, after all, where the notion of Nalla Pambu = a Good Snake – has always been most prominent.
Evidence of Serpent-worship can already be found at the Ancient, Dravidian(?) civilization, an Animistic civilization, that had worshipped various aspects of Nature, as well as the Mother Goddess, and which had flourished and prospered by the Indus river's Valley, at approximately the later half of the third millenium BC. But there, the Serpent Lord Himself appears, sometimes, to be a devotee – may be to a Higher Naga? His Parent, perhaps? Could there have been an Entire Pantheon of Serpent-Divinities, on a certain stage in the Past?
In India, the Serpent symble was connected also with Trees, that had grown intertwined. Is it possible, somehow, that there is a connection here with the myth of the Garden of `Eden and the Tree of Knowledge? Then, as the Aryans swept from the North, the fight between them, and the Native population of India, can be seen, reflected, at the various tales about the fight for Universal-domination between the Gods, the "Devas", and the resident Nagas. (An interesting point would be to mention, that their notion had been to identify the Nagas with Asuras – which, according to the Vedas, are the "Anti-Gods" and daemons.
Now, coming to check the Persian Zoroastrian faith, the "real God" is Ahura Mazda – while the Devas are the daemons, the "pishacas", the "Anti-God". Could there then be link, between Naga and Ahura Mazda, or is it just some sort of a co-incidence?) But, however, the more the two Peoples had resided next to each other, just like the arriving Aryans have innevitably become more and more dark-skinned, the more the Naga Serpents have entered their belief-system as well – and in the Rigveda-Samhita, the two voices are being heard – both of that, who opposed the Lord (which tells of indra's fight, against ahi-vritra – a Symbol, probably, to the great war, between the aryan invaders, who worshipped their pantheon of "Devas" and the local, Dravida inhabitants, who worshipped Nagas), and that, which views the Naga properly, as a Good, Benevolent God, at the Ahi-Budhnya – which was created, perhaps, by some Enlightened Brahmin, or one, which had worked towards a recouncilment of these both faiths into One?
Anyway, whatever may be the case, the One Cult, which has influenced most significantly Neo-Brahminic Religion, was the Cult of Naga. A Beautiful expression of this (later?) Brahminic View can be found at the Maitrayani Samhita 2.7.15 (translated as it is at "Religions in Various Cultures – Studies in Religion and Culture", page 96): "Homage be to the Snakes which so ever move along the Earth, which are in the Sky and in Heaven; homage be to those Snakes, which are the arrows of sorcerers and of Tree-Spirits which lie in holes; homage be to those Snakes which are in the Brightness of Heaven, which are in the Rays of the Sun, which have made their abodes in the Water, homage be to those Snakes".
Shiva wears Snakes, upon his head and all over his arms. Vishnu sometimes appears as fighting Snakes – as, when as Krishna, he helps Arjuna to put fire to the Khandava Forest, Home to the Naga Takshaka and his Son, Ashvasena), sometimes is their Ally (like with She`sha – The Celectial Seven-headed Snake, supporting the World from below, by the grace of Brahma, helping Vi`sh`nu to create and recreate it and is curling around Vi`sh`nu to protect and assist him, just as he appears cyrcling and protecting the buddha.
Krishna's Brother, Balaraama, is HIS Incarnation), sometimes – their Creator (Udakeyshaya), and sometimes – he is even even one of them himself (Naaraayana)!! This same Duality, so it seems, in the human view of Snakes and their worship, runs through the Entire Naga-related Literature, Prays etc., both in India's Cultural Sphere and all around the Globe. By the Classic Sanskrit era (around 500 BC – the time of Mahavira and Buddha), the Naga-worship has become so accepted and common that the Kings of the Ganga's two most important and powerful Kingdom – Magadha and Koshala – along with their Kshatriya (warrior) clans – claimed to be the descendants of Nagas and to be protected by them; and, when it comes to Buddhism, Nagas receive an Honourable place: It is a Naga Himself, who protects Buddha and defends him, by hugging him from all his sides – in an Asana not unlike Vishnu's, sitting upon the Great World Serpent Shesha – and the High King of the West – one of the Four Lokapala ("Kings of Directions"), residing at the Marvellous Pardessim by the Slopes of Mount Meru – is no other than Virupak`sha, the Red King of the Nagas.
Although, all these facts did not stop Anorahta, the king who introduced Buddhism into Burma by the 11th Century AD, from persecuting the Naga-Cult into an extinction, as "non-Buddhist". In an apparently old Story, Naga Padmanaabha is the most Perfect and Gracious Scholar, gifted with all the Best of possible Virtues, such as Generousity, Wisdom, Caring for other people's Wellbeing, Love of Knowledge, Truthfulness, Honesty and Visible Grace. And, having achieved this Great state of Sanctity, a Great Brahmin, sick of the World's unhonourable affairs, comes to learn his Way and to become like him. An interesting point here – which does, probably, point out his antiquity – is Naga Padmanaabha's Alliance with the Sun-God, who lends him his Chariot – a point which deserves a most special look at it. In later Indian and Burmese folk-tales, the Sun and the Serpent are swore enemies: the Sun is above, the Serpent is underneath – so, what could be more further away – and thus, according to some, remote and hostile?
But yet, in Ancient traditions throughout the World, the relation between the Two is quite different. In fact, many Mythologies identify the Sun With the Serpent, as One, Single, extremely Powerful and Benevolent, Life-giving Force = the Sun, which sends her Loving Serpents-Hands (rays) to carress the Earth and its inhabitants and to bless it all with Life. In the "Sun and Serpent Lore of Bengal", for example, Mr. Bhattacharyya writes, that "Though the Sun and the Serpent are the different Objects of Nature of diverse characters yet it will be seen that there are some common qualities between both of them according to popular belief. Both are considered the producers of Rain […] both confer upon boon of a son to barren women.
Both of them offer boon to the maids to have good husbands and happy Homes after their marriages. Both of them are cure-Deities". (there, pp. 126-127) So, as we can see, from all the above data, we can begin to carefully craft out a still somewhat-vague, but yet clearer and clearer picture: At Humanity's Early dawn – probably as early as before our Ancestors' migration from Africa, approximately 70,000 years ago – worshipped our Ancestors to many Deities, but most prominent among them, had been the Sun above and the Serpent below, sometimes merged into One Single identity = the Great SunSerpent Goddess, Gracious giver of Life and the Grand maintainance, of all the order of Creation as a Whole. http://srtertger.obolog.com/serpent-worship-humanity-s-first-religion-776475
Python Stone
http://www.world-science.net/othernews/061130_python.htm
http://www.world-science.net/othernews/061130_python.htm
Oldest known ritual: python worship, archaeologist says http://www.world-science.net/othernews/061130_python.htm
Nov. 30, 2006
Courtesy Research Council of Norway and World Science staff; Updated Dec. 1
An archaeologist claims to have found evidence of what may have been mankind’s earliest rituals: worship of the python, 70,000 years ago in Africa. Until now, scholars have largely held that the first rituals occurred over 40,000 years ago in Europe, according to Sheila Coulson of the University of Oslo in Norway.
Coulson argues that ancient worshippers saw the likeness of a python in this rock, and pockmarked it to mimic snake skin. Coulson said she turned up evidence of the python ceremonies while studying the origin of the San people of Ngamiland, a sparsely inhabited part of northwestern Botswana.
“Our find means that humans were more organised and had the capacity for abstract thinking” much earlier than previously assumed, she said.
Coulson said she found the evidence while seeking Middle Stone Age artifacts in the Kalahari Desert’s Tsodilo Hills, an isolated cluster of small peaks with the world’s largest concentration of rock paintings. The hills are still sacred to the San, who call them the “Mountains of the Gods” and the “Rock that Whispers.”
San mythology holds that mankind descended from the python. Ancient, arid streambeds around the hills are said to have been made by the snake as it circled, ceaselessly seeking water. Coulson said her find shows local people had a specific place for python-related rituals: a small cave on the hills’ northern side, so secluded and hard-to-access that it was was unknown to archaeology until the past decade.
When she entered it this summer with three master’s students, they noticed a rock resembling a huge python’s head, she said. The six-meter-long by two-meter-tall (20 feet by 6.6 feet) stone bore more than 300 dents that she argues are man-made.
“You could see the mouth and eyes of the snake. It looked like a real python. The play of sunlight over the indentations gave them the appearance of snake skin. At night, the firelight gave one the feeling that the snake was actually moving.”
There was no sign of recent work on the rock; its surface was heavily worn, she said. A photo supplied by Coulson alongside a statement announcing the find this week seemed to show the serpent’s “snout” planted in an extraneous stone. This, she wrote in an email, might be because it’s all a natural formation except for the dents. The snout might have been hard to reach to make modifications because the floor was two meters lower in ancient times, she added. Also, snakes in late Stone Age paintings commonly “run into or out of cracks in the wall—or into wall faces,” she wrote.
She also argued that a wealth of surrounding evidence backs her theory. The researchers dug a pit directly before the python stone and found many stones, which they said were tools used to make the pockmarks. Some of these were dated as more than 70,000 years old. They also found a piece of the wall that had fallen off during the work, and more than 13,000 artifacts, all spearheads and items that could be linked to ritual use, they said.
The stones used as spearheads aren’t from the Tsodilo region, Coulson added, but seem to have come from hundreds of kilometers away. The spearheads are better crafted and more colourful than other spearheads from the same time and area, she added, and only red spearheads had been burned.
“Stone age people took these colourful spearheads, brought them to the cave, and finished carving them there. Only the red spearheads were burned. It was a ritual destruction of artifacts. There was no sign of normal habitation. No ordinary tools were found at the site... All of the indications suggest that Tsodilo has been known to mankind for almost 100,000 years as a very special place,” said Coulson.
An apparent secret chamber lay behind the python stone, she added, and parts of its entrance were worn smooth, suggesting many people had passed through it over the years. A shaman, she said—still a key figure in San culture—could have hidden in the chamber and had a good view of the cave interior. When he spoke from his crevice, it could have seemed as though the snake were speaking. “The shaman would have been able to control everything. It was perfect,” she argued, adding that the priest could also have “disappeared” by crawling out onto the hillside through a small shaft.
While large cave and wall paintings abound throughout the Tsodilo Hills, this cave has only two small paintings, she continued: an elephant and a giraffe, painted, surprisingly, exactly where water trickles down the wall. Coulson thinks San mythology might explain this. In one San story, the python falls into water and can’t escape. A giraffe saves it. The elephant, with its long trunk, often serves as a metaphor for the python.
“In the cave, we find only the San people’s three most important animals: the python, the elephant, and the giraffe... many pieces of the puzzle fit together here,” Coulson said.
She added that she plans to submit a paper on the findings to a research journal. Normally, she acknowledged, to sustain the credibility of new findings, researchers should wait to announce results publicly until a research paper is accepted for publication. But she made an exception, she said, because these findings have already been publicized widely on Botswana TV and radio, and she has has discussed them in detail with colleagues worldwide.
Torfinn Ørmen, a zoologist who lectures on human evolution at the university and was not a member of the research team, told the school’s research magazine Apollon that “This is the oldest ritual site that we know of and it was in use before physically modern man left Africa.” The San, also called Bushmen, belong to the most ancient race of humans, he added. “Some researchers believe that modern man descended from the San. What is certain is that the San... have a very deep connection to this area of Botswana.”
Nov. 30, 2006
Courtesy Research Council of Norway and World Science staff; Updated Dec. 1
An archaeologist claims to have found evidence of what may have been mankind’s earliest rituals: worship of the python, 70,000 years ago in Africa. Until now, scholars have largely held that the first rituals occurred over 40,000 years ago in Europe, according to Sheila Coulson of the University of Oslo in Norway.
Coulson argues that ancient worshippers saw the likeness of a python in this rock, and pockmarked it to mimic snake skin. Coulson said she turned up evidence of the python ceremonies while studying the origin of the San people of Ngamiland, a sparsely inhabited part of northwestern Botswana.
“Our find means that humans were more organised and had the capacity for abstract thinking” much earlier than previously assumed, she said.
Coulson said she found the evidence while seeking Middle Stone Age artifacts in the Kalahari Desert’s Tsodilo Hills, an isolated cluster of small peaks with the world’s largest concentration of rock paintings. The hills are still sacred to the San, who call them the “Mountains of the Gods” and the “Rock that Whispers.”
San mythology holds that mankind descended from the python. Ancient, arid streambeds around the hills are said to have been made by the snake as it circled, ceaselessly seeking water. Coulson said her find shows local people had a specific place for python-related rituals: a small cave on the hills’ northern side, so secluded and hard-to-access that it was was unknown to archaeology until the past decade.
When she entered it this summer with three master’s students, they noticed a rock resembling a huge python’s head, she said. The six-meter-long by two-meter-tall (20 feet by 6.6 feet) stone bore more than 300 dents that she argues are man-made.
“You could see the mouth and eyes of the snake. It looked like a real python. The play of sunlight over the indentations gave them the appearance of snake skin. At night, the firelight gave one the feeling that the snake was actually moving.”
There was no sign of recent work on the rock; its surface was heavily worn, she said. A photo supplied by Coulson alongside a statement announcing the find this week seemed to show the serpent’s “snout” planted in an extraneous stone. This, she wrote in an email, might be because it’s all a natural formation except for the dents. The snout might have been hard to reach to make modifications because the floor was two meters lower in ancient times, she added. Also, snakes in late Stone Age paintings commonly “run into or out of cracks in the wall—or into wall faces,” she wrote.
She also argued that a wealth of surrounding evidence backs her theory. The researchers dug a pit directly before the python stone and found many stones, which they said were tools used to make the pockmarks. Some of these were dated as more than 70,000 years old. They also found a piece of the wall that had fallen off during the work, and more than 13,000 artifacts, all spearheads and items that could be linked to ritual use, they said.
The stones used as spearheads aren’t from the Tsodilo region, Coulson added, but seem to have come from hundreds of kilometers away. The spearheads are better crafted and more colourful than other spearheads from the same time and area, she added, and only red spearheads had been burned.
“Stone age people took these colourful spearheads, brought them to the cave, and finished carving them there. Only the red spearheads were burned. It was a ritual destruction of artifacts. There was no sign of normal habitation. No ordinary tools were found at the site... All of the indications suggest that Tsodilo has been known to mankind for almost 100,000 years as a very special place,” said Coulson.
An apparent secret chamber lay behind the python stone, she added, and parts of its entrance were worn smooth, suggesting many people had passed through it over the years. A shaman, she said—still a key figure in San culture—could have hidden in the chamber and had a good view of the cave interior. When he spoke from his crevice, it could have seemed as though the snake were speaking. “The shaman would have been able to control everything. It was perfect,” she argued, adding that the priest could also have “disappeared” by crawling out onto the hillside through a small shaft.
While large cave and wall paintings abound throughout the Tsodilo Hills, this cave has only two small paintings, she continued: an elephant and a giraffe, painted, surprisingly, exactly where water trickles down the wall. Coulson thinks San mythology might explain this. In one San story, the python falls into water and can’t escape. A giraffe saves it. The elephant, with its long trunk, often serves as a metaphor for the python.
“In the cave, we find only the San people’s three most important animals: the python, the elephant, and the giraffe... many pieces of the puzzle fit together here,” Coulson said.
She added that she plans to submit a paper on the findings to a research journal. Normally, she acknowledged, to sustain the credibility of new findings, researchers should wait to announce results publicly until a research paper is accepted for publication. But she made an exception, she said, because these findings have already been publicized widely on Botswana TV and radio, and she has has discussed them in detail with colleagues worldwide.
Torfinn Ørmen, a zoologist who lectures on human evolution at the university and was not a member of the research team, told the school’s research magazine Apollon that “This is the oldest ritual site that we know of and it was in use before physically modern man left Africa.” The San, also called Bushmen, belong to the most ancient race of humans, he added. “Some researchers believe that modern man descended from the San. What is certain is that the San... have a very deep connection to this area of Botswana.”
Pulluvars are a primitive Dravidian group.The term pullu means a bird of omen.The term pulluvan must have meant ‘a person who predicts from the sound of birds’. There are many sub-divisions within the Pulluva Community. The majority among them are called Nagampatikal(People who sing snake-songs). There are pulluvars who are not Naagampatikal. They are known as pretampatikal (People who sing ghost songs). Most of the art forms of the pulluvar are ritualistic. Most of their songs are related to worship,ritual,custom and exorcism. The pulluva art is expressed in the background of snake-worship, ghost worship and magic. The pulluvar of Kerala are closely connected to the serpent worship here.One group among these people consider the snake gods as their presiding deity and perform certain sacrifices and sing songs. This is called ’Pulluvar Pattu’. This is performed in the houses of the lower castes as well as those of the higher castes, in addition to serpent temples. The song conducted by the pulluvar in serpent temples and snake groves is called Sarppapaattu, Naagam Paattu, Sarppam Thullal, Sarppolsavam, Paambum ThullalPaambum Kalam. The main aspects of this are Kalamezhuthu (Drawing of Kalam), song and dance.
The women perform the serpent dance(Sarppam Thullal). Austerities start seven days or nine days prior to the day of the dance. Once they start the austerities they themselves prepare food. They avoid eating certain food items that are considered to be impure. The pandal where the serpent dance takes place is adorned with palm leaves, granium flowers, jasmine flowers, chrysanthemum indicum, champaka, lotus, banyan leaf, betel leaf, ripe arecanut and branches of coconut flowers. The form of the serpent is drawn with rice and colour powder. The people who represent the serpent clan come to the decorated kalam (the place where the form of the serpent is drawn) in a certain specific order.
They are Naagaraajaavu, Naagayakshi, Sarppayakshi, Maninaagam, Erinaagam, Karinaagam, Kuzhinaagam, Paranaagam and Kanyaavu. The woman who represents Naagarajaavu comes to the Kalam with a sword in her right hand and seeds and staff in the left hand. The others follow her. They circumambulate the Kalam seven times and put down their weapons. The serpents are worshipped in front of the Kalam and are offered Noorum Paalum (Lime and Milk). After the pooja, the head of the family which conducts the Sarppam thullal gives bunches of coconut flowers to the perfomers who start dancing rhythmically. They are supposed to represent the serpent gods, who accept offerings and grant boons to the devotees.
The intensity of the dance heightens gradually. It is believed that prophesies which the dancer gives at the point of heightened intensity of the dance usually comes true. They fall on the floor in a trance and rub off the Kalam at the end. The musical instruments used by the Pulluvar are Veena, Kutam (pot) and thaalam.These instruments are made by the Pulluvar themselves. The Veena is made out of a hollow bamboo stick, coconut shell and brass wire. The Veena is played with a small arrow made out of a piece of bamboo. The Kutam is made of a pot on whose bottom a hole is bored, and calf skin is attached on the hole. Two small holes are made on the side where the skin is attached, and a string is tied to it. The other end of the string is tied to the end of a long stick. On the side where the string is attached to the stick is placed a small splint to elevate the stick. In orer to restrict the movement of the stick, the other end is stamped down by the foot of the player. The string is called theru. Pulluvar songs are sung on Aayilyam Pooja, day which is considered to be very auspicious. The presiding deity of the Aayilyam is the serpent. The main temples of Kerala where serpent is worshipped are Mannarassaala (Alappuzha District), Paambu Meykkaad (Trichur District), Trippara Temple (Kollam district) and Ametamangalam (Ernakulam District). A very ancient temple where serpent worship is performed is Perasseri temple (Kannur District). http://www.malayalamresourcecentre.org/Mrc/culture/artforms/pulluvapaattu/pulluvapaattu.html or
Solar Serpent Worship
WORSHIP OF THE SERPENT.
CHAPTER I. SERPENT-WORSHIP IN ASIA.
THE WORSHIP OF THE SERPENT is supposed by Bryant to have commenced in Chaldæa; and to have been the "first variation from the purer Zabaism 1."
That it was intimately connected with Zabaism cannot be doubted; for the most prevailing emblem of the solar god was the SERPENT 2: and wherever the Zabæan idolatry was the religion, the SERPENT was the sacred symbol. But the UNIVERSALITY of serpent-worship, and the strong traces which it has left in ASTRONOMICAL MYTHOLOGY, seem to attest an origin coëval with Zabaism itself.
The earliest authentic record of SERPENT-WORSHIP is to be found in the astronomy of Chaldæa and China; but the extensive diffusion of this remarkable superstition through the remaining regions of the globe, where Chinese wisdom never penetrated, and Chaldæan philosophy was but feebly reflected, authorizes the inference that neither China nor Chaldæa was the mother, but that both were the children of this idolatry. That accidental circumstances very materially affected the religions of the early heathen at different times, by introducing innovations both in gods and altars, worship and sacrifices, cannot be denied; but it is equally true, that uniformly with the progress of the first deviation from the truth, has advanced the sacred serpent from Paradise to Peru. To follow the traces of this sacred serpent is the intention of the following treatise: and it is confidently expected that few ancient nations of any celebrity will be found which have not, at some time or other, admitted the serpent into their religion, either as a symbol of divinity, or a charm, or an oracle, or A GOD 1. Into the creed of some he
has insinuated himself in all these characters, and is so mixed up with their traditions of the ORIGIN and END of EVIL, that we cannot, without violence to all rules of probability, reject the consequence--that the prototype of this idolatry was THE SERPENT IN PARADISE.
1. BABYLON.--In tracing the progress of the sacred serpent, we commence with ASIA, as the mother country of mankind; and in Asia, with BABYLON, as the most ancient seat of an established priesthood.
The information which we possess concerning the minute features of Babylonian idolatry, is from various causes very narrowly circumscribed. Either the classical writers who visited Babylon were not admitted into the arcana of the Chaldæan worship, or they were contented with giving a short and summary account of it; ex-pending the chief strength of their descriptive powers upon the history, policy, and magnificence of the mother of cities. Herodotus, whose diffuseness on the history and customs of the Babylonians is considerable, enters but little into their religion; and Diodorus Siculus, minute in his measurements of the walls and gardens, comprises his description of the temple of Belus in a few sentences.
Ophiolatreia, as a recognized religion, was nearly extinct when Diodorus visited Babylon, for the city was almost deserted by its inhabitants, and the public edifices were crumbling to decay. But the silence of Herodotus is the more remarkable, since he mentions the serpent-worship of both Egypt and Greece, which was prevalent in his time. The idolatry could scarcely be obsolete in Babylon at that period, since it existed in full vigour but seventy years before, in the days of Daniel; and though it received a signal overthrow from its exposure by that prophet, yet the tumultuous conduct of the Babylonians on that occasion, as it evinces their attachment to the idolatry, warrants the inference that they would cling to it long after its abolition, even by a royal decree 1. But most probably Herodotus did not take the trouble to inquire into the superstitions of the common people, being content to describe what was the established religion; and even this he notices in a very cursory manner.
From Diodorus, however, we learn what is sufficient to assure us, that the serpent, as an object of worship, was not altogether forgotten in Babylon, though disguised under the more specious appearance of symbolical sanctity. He informs us, that in the temple of Bel, or Belus, was "an image of the goddess Rhea, sitting on a golden throne; at her knees stood two lions, and near her very large SERPENTS of silver, thirty talents each in weight." There was also an image of Juno, holding in her right hand the head of a SERPENT 1."
The name of the national god BEL is supposed to signify nothing more than "Lord;" and was also sometimes appropriated to deified heroes 2. It is more probably an abbreviation of OB-EL 3,--"The Serpent-god." The Greeks, remarks Bryant, called him BELIAR, which is singularly interpreted by Hesychius to signify a DRAGON, or GREAT SERPENT 4. From which we may conclude that the serpent was, at least, an emblem or symbol of BEL. But if the apocryphal history of "BEL AND THE DRAGON" be founded upon any tradition, we must conclude that the dragon, or serpent, (for the words are synonymous,) was something more than a mere symbol: we must conclude, that LIVE SERPENTS were kept at Babylon as objects of adoration; or, at least, of veneration, as oracular or talismanic. This custom was observed at Thebes in Egypt 1, and at Athens 2; and therefore there is nothing incredible in the fact at Babylon. However suspiciously then we may regard the apocryphal writings in general, we are constrained to admit that the author of "Bel and the Dragon," though he may have embellished the narrative, has given us a true picture of Babylonian superstition.
In that same place there was a GREAT DRAGON, which they of Babylon WORSHIPPED. And the king said unto Daniel, 'Wilt thou say that this is of brass? lo! he eateth and drinketh: thou canst not say he is no LIVING GOD: therefore WORSHIP HIM.'"
From the Chaldæans, we are told, that the Hebrews obtained the word ABADON, as a title of the "Prince of Darkness." This word may signify THE SERPENT-LORD." Heinsius 1 (cited by Bryant) makes Abadon to be the same as the Grecian Python. "It is not to be doubted that the Pythian Apollo is that evil spirit whom the Hebrews call OB and ABADON; the Hellenists, APOLLYON; and the other Greeks, APOLLO. This is corroborated by the testimony of St. John, who says, "They had a king over them which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abadon; but in the Greek (Hellenistic) tongue hath his name Apollyon 2." This same angel of the bottomless pit," is in another place called by the Evangelist, "the dragon, that old serpent which is the Devil and Satan 3."
Subject to the king of Babylon was Assyria; and the people of this country are said to have borne "a dragon" upon their standard 4. It is observed by Bryant, that in most countries the original military standard was descriptive of the deity they worshipped. It is certain that the Roman soldiers paid great veneration to their military insignia, almost amounting to worship: from which we may infer, that the devices on them were, originally, emblems of the gods. Their chief ensign, the eagle, was sacred to Jupiter. From the practice of the Romans, we may obtain an insight into that of the other nations of antiquity; for in matters of superstition it is astonishing how nearly people, geographically the most remote, approached each other.
From the Assyrians, the emperors of Constantinople are said to have borrowed the dragon standard 1. The same standard was also borne by the Parthians 2, Scythians 3, Saxons 4, Chinese, Danes 5, and Egyptians,--people who were in a greater or less degree addicted to serpent-worship. We may therefore infer, that the dragon ensign of the Assyrians denoted their devotion to the same idolatry.
II. PERSIA.--The serpent-worship of Persia is more noticed by authors than that of Babylonia. The dracontic standard distinguished the Persians as well as the Assyrian; for among the spoils taken by Aurelian from Zenobia were "Persici Dracones 1;" which were doubtless military ensigns, for the Persians assisted the queen of Palmyra on that occasion. This, according to our hypothesis, would denote that the Persians venerated the serpent; an inference which is abundantly proved from their mythology.
In the mythology of Persia we may look for the remnant of the ancient Chaldæan philosophy: and in proportion as we establish the prevalence of ophiolatreia in Persia, in the same proportion, at least, we may infer that it once obtained in Babylon.
So strongly marked was this character of idolatry in the Persian religion, that Eusebius does not hesitate to affirm, "they all worshipped the first principles under the form of SERPENTS, having dedicated to them temples in which they performed sacrifices, and held festivals and orgies, esteeming them THE GREATEST OF GODS, and GOVERNORS OF THE UNIVERSE 1."
"The first principles" were Ormuzd and Ahriman, the good and evil deity, whose contention for the universe was represented in Persian mythology, by two serpents contending for the MUNDANE EGG. They are standing upon their tails, and each of them has fastened upon the object in dispute with his teeth. The egg for which they contend, represented the universe in the mythologies of India, Egypt, and Persia. An engraving of this may be seen in Montfaucon. But the EVIL PRINCIPLE was more particularly represented by the serpent, as we may infer from a fable in the Zenda Vesta, in which that deity is described as having assumed a serpent's form to destroy the first of the human species, whom he accordingly poisoned 2.
A similar proof occurs in the Sadder 3, where we find the following precept:--"When you kill serpents, you shall repeat the Zenda Vesta, and thence you will obtain great merit: for it is the same as if you had killed so many devils." The Zenda Vesta to be here "repeated" might, perhaps, be that portion of it above alluded to--the assumption of the serpent's form by Ahriman. Connected with which, doubtless, was the popular belief of the Persians, that in the place of torment in the other world, scorpions and serpents gnaw and sting the feet of the wicked 1.
The God MITHRAS was represented encircled by a serpent: and in his rites a custom was observed similar to that practised in the Mysteries of Sebazius 2--a serpent3. In Montfaucon, vol. v. are some plates of Mithras, with a lion's head and a human body; and round him is coiled a large winged serpent. In the Supplement to vol. i. Montfaucon gives us a representation of a stone found at Lyons. It is a rude stone, exhibiting the head of a young and beardless man. Under it is the inscription, "DEO INVICTO MITHIR, SECUNDINUS DAT:" and under the inscription, the raised figure of a large serpent. Mithras was styled "invictus," and often represented with a youthful countenance, like that of Apollo.
Mandelsoe, who visited an ancient temple at Mardasch, saw in one of the recesses, "a square pillar, with the figure of a king upon it, worshipping the SUN, FIRE, and A SERPENT 1." "On the front of some ancient Persian grottoes, sacred to the solar deity, was figured a princely personage approaching an altar, on which the sacred fire is burning. Above all is the sun, and the figure of the deity in a cloud, with sometimes a sacred bandage, at other times a SERPENT entwined round his middle 2."
This is the God AZON, whose name, according to Bryant, signifies "the sun." The sacred girdle round his waist was esteemed an emblem of the orbit described by ZON, the sun. Hence girdles were called by the Greeks, zones 3.
This deity is sometimes represented differently 4, as a young man in profile, round whose
waist is drawn a ring loosely dependent. Through the lower part of this ring passes a serpent. At the upper limb of the circle, behind the figure, is a kind of mantle, composed of expanded wings.
In Kœmpfer's Amœnit. Exot. the same deity is described in a third form. He appears terminating at the waist in a circle, which is composed of a serpent: from each side of this circle proceed four wings. In his left hand he holds another circle, or ring, composed, like the former, of a serpent biting his own tail. This painting was at Persepolis. Here is also, in Kœmpfer, p. 312, a figure of a priest of this god, who appears to be approaching an altar with a serpent in his left hand. In the sky above is a representation of his deity, and behind the God is the Sun.
The hierogram of the CIRCLE WINGS and SERPENT is one of the most curious emblems of Ophiolatreia, and may be recognised in almost every country where Serpent-Worship prevailed. It forms a prominent feature in the Persian, Egyptian, and Mexican hieroglyphics. China, Hindûstan, Greece, Italy, and Asia Minor, as distinctly, though more rarely, exhibit it; and it has even been found in Britain. It seems to have been a general symbol of consecration, and as such is alluded to by the poet Persius:
Pinge duos angues; pueri sacer est locus.
Sat. I. 113. Here two snakes are mentioned, which is the hierogram of the worshippers of the Two PRINCIPLES, each of whom is represented by a serpent. Often, however, only one serpent appears issuing from the winged circle, and sometimes the circle is shorn of its wings. As a symbol of consecration, the ophite hierogram appears over the portals of the Egyptian temples, and may be recognised even in those of Java. The Druids, however, with the consistent magnificence which characterized their religion, transferred the symbol from the portal to the whole temple; and instead of placing the circle and serpent over the entrance into their sanctuaries, erected the entire building itself in the form of the ophite hierogram. Abury in Wiltshire, and Stanton Drew in Somersetshire, are interesting examples of this construction. The former represents the ophite hierogram with one serpent, the latter with two; the circle in each case being destitute of wings.
On the ruins of Naki Rustan, in Persia, is a beautiful specimen of the serpent and winged circle. In Egypt the hierogram underwent various transformations, of which the annexed plate gives a description. One of them, No. 2, is perhaps the device from which Malachi borrowed his elegant metaphor of "THE SUN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS arising with healing in his WINGS."
Selden remarks, that the figure in abbreviated writing among the Greeks, signified Δαιμων, the deity 1. The same figure, according to Kircher, was in use among the Brahmins of Hindûstan, as the "character mundi intelligibilis 2"--that is, of the Deity; for the universe and its Creator were often confounded by the ancient heathen. The emblem is evidently the globe and serpents of Egyptian mythology. In the same form was erected the celebrated temple of the Druids at Abury in Wiltshire. The upright stones which constituted the Adytum and its approaches, correctly delineated the circle, with the serpent passing through it 3.
In China, this sacred emblem assumed a form unknown in other countries. The serpents were separated from the annulus, being placed on each side of it, regarding each other. This was probably a representation of the two principles claiming the universe. This sacred ring between two serpents, is very common on the triumphal arches of Pekin. In Table XV. of Baron Vischer's Ancient Architecture 1, is an engraving of such an arch, and on it is this hierogram twice depicted.
But the most remarkable of all is the Mexican symbol. Here the two serpents, intertwining, form the circle with their own bodies, and in the mouth of each of them is a Human head!
A similar figure was assumed by the Ophite hierogram when it appeared on the staff of Mercury, and constituted the Caduceus. The serpents intertwining formed the circle.
The origin of this symbol is to be found in the deification of the serpent of Paradise. Its real meaning is involved in much mystery. In the former edition of this treatise I advanced the opinion, that it meant nothing more than the winged serpent once coiled. But further consideration has induced me to give up this conjecture as irreconcileable with the connection of the Serpent and Globe. The most probable meaning may be that which I have assigned in the chapter on Serpent Temples: namely, that it is the hierogram of the Solar Ophite God OPHEL or APOLLO; and assumed its present shape from the union of the two idolatries of the Serpent and the Sun. For the grounds of this conjecture I refer to the chapter cited.
At all events it is certain, that the tripartite emblem of the Serpent, Wings, and Circle, was an hieroglyphic of the DEITY; and this is sufficient for the purposes of my argument.
The Egyptian priests of a later and more metaphysical age, understanding this to be the signification of the hierogram, addressed themselves to the task of discovering the mystery. A most ingenious theory was accordingly devised by Hermes Trismegistus, who was probably the high-priest of the God Thoth, or "Thrice-great Hermes," whose name he assumed in compliance with the universal custom of the religion. The God Thoth was believed to have been the author of the Egyptian hieroglyphics.
According to this theory, the GLOBE typified the SIMPLE ESSENCE OF GOD, which he indifferently called THE FATHER, THE FIRST MIND, THE SUPREME WISDOM. THE SERPENT emerging from the GLOBE was the VIVIFYING POWER of GOD, which called all things into existence. This he named THE WORD.
The WINGS implied the MOVING or PENETRATIVE POWER of GOD, which pervaded all things. This he called LOVE.
The whole emblem was interpreted to represent the SUPREME BEING in his character of CREATOR and PRESERVER 1.
The definition of the Deity by TRISMEGISTUS is poetically sublime: "GOD is a CIRCLE whose CENTRE is EVERYWHERE, and CIRCUMFERENCE NOWHERE. 2"
The above description of the ophite hierogram, as may well be imagined, has persuaded many an ardent friend of revelation to recognise in this symbol of the hieroglyphical learning of Egypt, the mystery of the HOLY TRINITY. Kircher, Cudworth, and Maurice have all embraced this opinion; but the more cautious FABER 3, with the arguments of all before him, has come to the conclusion, that the doctrine of the Trinity, in its Christian sense, was unknown to the Pagans.
That there has been but one essential religion among the servants of the living God, from the fall to the present hour, no reasonable reader of the Holy Scriptures can deny. There never has been a time in which TRUE RELIGION has been wholly lost. Some few, if not "seven thousand," have always been "left" who "have not bowed the knee to Baal." But for these few, who have had a right knowledge and clear conception of the Deity as revealed to Adam, we must look among the holy "remnant," who were at one time confined to the family of NOAH, and at another to that of ABRAHAM. The rapidity with which the descendents of Noah fell into POLYTHEISM forbids our being too sanguine in the hope of discovering the doctrine of the Trinity among the Gentiles. This doctrine itself; corruptly remembered, perhaps gave rise to that very Polytheism which at length obliterated almost every trace of rational religion in the world.
If then "the globe, wings, and serpent," was among the Egyptians the hieroglyphic of the Trinity, we must suppose that the priests acquired this doctrine from their intercourse with the Israelites, rather than from any tradition of their ancestors. In this case, JOSEPH would be the Hermes Trismegistus, so lauded in Egyptian history, (as Bryant, indeed, supposes he was.) Joseph is said to have "taught" the Egyptian "senators wisdom 1:" but not, I apprehend, in a religious sense. The edict of Pharaoh, to which this probably alludes, is of a political nature 2. It would have been the extreme of indiscretion for Joseph to have attempted, without a divine command, to instruct the Egyptians in the mysteries of religion: and had such a command been issued, it would have been recorded by Moses. So far from the Egyptians having acquired religious instruction from the Israelites, every journey in the wilderness performed by the latter, proves that they learned idolatry from the Egyptians. "The golden calf" is a memorable instance, as copied from the rites of the sacred ox Apis.
Besides, it is more likely that Joseph, in his instructions on the mysteries of religion, would have begun with his own people, who seem not only to have been ignorant of the doctrine of the [paragraph continues] TRINITY, but of every rational idea of the UNITY of God, when Moses was commissioned to lead them from Egypt. Of this we have abundant proof in the diffidence with which he accepted the commission 1.
So gross was their ignorance, and so deep-rooted their prejudices, that the doctrine of the Trinity was never, indeed, fully explained to them, even by Moses. He deemed it a doctrine too dangerous for their idolatrously inclined minds to bear, lest in their ardour for the Polytheism which it was his object to eradicate, they should separate the Unity, and dishonour the Trinity--lest in their proneness to worship the MANY, they should forget that "JEHOVAH their GOD is ONE JEHOVAH 2."
I cannot therefore see that there is any conclusive testimony that the Egyptian hierogram of GLOBE, WINGS, and SERPENT, denoted the Trinity, in our sense of the term. Indeed, it may be doubted whether the definition of Hermes Trismegistus, adduced by Kircher, may not have been a "pious fraud" of some Egyptian Christian of the second or third century, whose imagination seized upon this popular emblem as a fit instrument for inculcating the truth.
But, whatever may have been the origin or meaning of this hierogram, one thing is clear, that the SERPENT attached to it was a TYPE OF DIVINITY; and this is enough to support the theory of the present volume, --that The Serpent of Paradise was the SERPENT-GOD of the Gentiles.
III. HINDÛSTAN.--As an emblem of divinity, the serpent enters deeply into the religion of the Brahmins; and, from the popular superstitions of the present race of Hindûs, we may infer that he was at one time an object of religious worship. The well known reluctance of the natives of Hindûstan to kill a snake, cannot be referred entirely to the doctrine of transmigration of souls. In Forbes's "Oriental Memoirs," we read of certain gardeners in Guzerat who would never suffer the snakes to be molested, calling them "father," "brother," and other endearing names, and looking upon them as something divine. The head-gardener, however, "paid them religious honours 1."
Here we observe a mixture of the original serpent-worship, with the more modern doctrine of transmigration.
But a more tangible proof that ophiolatreia did indeed exist in Hindûstan in former times, is furnished in the following fact, noticed in Purchas's Pilgrims. A king of Calicut "built cottages" for live serpents, whom he tended with peculiar care, and made it a capital crime for any person in his dominions to destroy a snake. "The natives looked upon serpents as endued with divine spirits 1."
From some such a notion may have been derived a custom which prevails in certain parts of Hindûstan to this day. The natives have a festival called "The Feast of the Serpents," at which every Hindû sets by a portion of his rice for the hooded snake on the outside of his house. By this offering he expects to propitiate those reptiles during the remainder of the year.
A further proof of the ancient prevalence of ophiolatreia in those countries, is afforded by the sculptures in the celebrated caverns of Salsette and Elephanta; where the deities either grasp serpents in their hands, or are enfolded by them. Serpents are also sculptured on the cornices surrounding the roofs of those caverns, and similarly delineated in the more modern pagodas 1. The god Sani, of the Hindûs, is represented on a raven, and encircled by two serpents, whose heads meet over that of the god 2.
Maurice supposes that by the serpentine circle over Sani, who is the Saturn of the Hindûs, the ring of that planet is denoted. If so, the discoveries of modern astronomy are little more than revivals of the ancient philosophy. But whether Sani be Saturn or the Sun, he is equally illustrative of our theory--that serpents were early emblems of divinity in Hindûstan. As such we find them employed in the religious festivals of the Hindûs 3, symbolizing some of their most awful deities.
Boodh and Jeyne are both adorned with the same emblem. The statue of Jeyne, who is said to be the Indian Æculapius, is turbaned by a seven-headed snake: the rim of the pedestal is embossed with serpents' heads. The same serpent also symbolizes Parus Nauth 1.
On a rock in the Ganges, in the province of Bahar, is a sculpture of Veshnu reposing on a coiled serpent, whose numerous folds are made to form a canopy over the sleeping god 2. This serpent is fabled to have been the goddess Devi or Isi, who assumed the figure to carry Veshnu over the waters of the Deluge 3. The sleep of Veshnu indicates the period between the two worlds. A similar sculpture is to be seen among the ruins of Mavalipuram, on the coast of Coromandel 4. Veshnu himself is sometimes represented encompassed in the folds of a serpent; and Twashta, the great artificer of the universe, who corresponds in Hindû mythology with the Cneph or Ptha of the Egyptians, is supposed to have borne the form of a serpent 5. Jagan-Nath (Juggernaut) is said to be sometimes worshipped under the form of a seven-headed dragon 6. The Hindû Deonaush (the Dionusus of the Greeks,) was metamorphosed into a snake 7: hence, probably the prominent figure which the serpent bore in the mysteries of Bacchus.
Mahadeva (a name of Siva,) is sometimes represented with a snake entwined about his neck; one round his hair, and armlets of serpents upon both arms 1.
Bhairava (an Avatar of Siva,) sits upon the coils of a serpent, whose head rises above that of the god 2.
Parvati, the consort of Siva, is represented with snakes about her neck and waist 3.
Hence we perceive that the serpent was an emblem not confined to one god, but common to many. "The fifth day of the bright half of the month Sravana is also sacred to the demigods in the forms of serpents 4."
This reptile, though the attribute of many of the Hindû deities, both benevolent and malignant, belonged more properly to the EVIL SPIRIT, of whom it is a sacred and terrific emblem. The king of the evil dæmons is called, in Hindû mythology, "the king of the serpents." His name is NAGA, and he is the prince of the Nagas, or [paragraph continues] Naigs. "In which Sanscrit appellation," observes Maurice, "we plainly trace the Hebrew nachash, which is the very word for the particular serpentine tempter, and, in general, for all serpents throughout the Old Testament 1." The Hindû Naraka, or hell, is fabled to consist of poisonous "snakes folded together in horrible contortions."
The malignant serpent Caliya, who was slain by Veshnu, (in his incarnation of Crishna), because he poisoned the air, and destroyed the herds on the banks of the Yamuna, was deified and worshipped by the Hindûs "in the same manner as Python was adored at Delphi 2."
To the evil dæmon, in the form of a great serpent, the Hindûs attributed the guardianship of treasures. A remarkable instance of this superstition occurs in Forbes's Oriental Memoirs. Having once the curiosity to open a vault in a deserted tower, in which treasure was reported to be concealed, under the guardianship of a dæmon in the form of a snake, he prevailed, with much difficulty, upon two men to descend; when, in strict accordance with the popular
belief, they found a large serpent in a torpid state. The two men were drawn up, and the reptile destroyed by fire; but nothing could induce the natives again to enter a place, which they now regarded more than ever as the residence of the evil spirit.
In Hindûstan prevailed, also, the general opinion which accompanied ophiolatreia in all its progress--that the serpent was of a prophetic nature 1.
The decay of ophiolatreia in Hindûstan may be readily accounted for by the exterminating religious wars which so long raged between the followers of Crishna and Budha. Budha was the serpent who carried off Ella the daughter of Ichswaca, the son of Manu--and hence the animosity against him. The children (i.e. the worshippers) of Budha, were the real Hindûs, and preserved the ophite sign of their race. They were distinguished by the banner of the serpent. The worshippers of Crishna adopted the eagle.
The worshippers of Crishna, Budha, and Surya (the sun) form the three idolatrous classes of India from the Ganges to the Caspian sea.
[paragraph continues] The children of Surya joined with those of Crishna against the Budhists, and at length almost exterminated the race. The Mahabharat records constant wars from "ancient times" between the worshippers of the Sun and the Tak or Takshac races. The word Takshac is frequently rendered "snake:" but Tak is the name of a mountain in the range west of India, and Hak was the word which designated a serpent. Alexander's ally Taxiles was doubtless an Ophite chief of this country, for he took him to see an enormous dragon, the object of worship among his subjects 1. The name Taxiles was probably titular, since he was called OnuphisOnuphis by the Greeks, who had acquired the knowledge of this title from their intercourse with Egypt, and her priesthood of ON and OPH 2.
Pursuing our inquiries, we find that ophiolatreia prevailed to an equal extent in Cachmere, where there were no less than seven hundred places in which carved images of serpents were worshipped 1. And even in Tibet may be often seen, the great Chinese dragon ornamenting the temples of the Grand Lama 2. But the chief seats of ophiolatreia in this quarter of the modern world were in China and Japan.
IV. CEYLON.--The religion of the natives of Ceylon is the Boodh, which is a corruption of the ancient ophiolatreia. "The Singalese," says Dr. Davy 3, "in general rather venerate than dread the hooded snake. They conceive that it belongs to another world, and that when it appears in this is only a visitor. They imagine that it possesses great power, and is somewhat akin to the gods, and superior to man. In consequence they superstitiously refrain from killing it." This is the snake made use of by the serpent charmers. Its image is also seen round the necks of some of the gods. The mythological history of this serpent is curious. They live in the world of spirits in a place peculiarly devoted to themselves, and are said to have a faculty of locomotion, and a splendour of appearance like the gods. Nevertheless, they are supposed to have been once human beings, who forfeited their estate by indulging the sin of malice.
V. CHINA AND JAPAN.--The great Chinese DRAGON, so conspicuous in every public and private edifice, was the symbolical serpent of ancient mythology, under a more fanciful and poetic form. "It was the genial banner of the empire, and indicated every thing that was sacred in it 1." "It was not only the stamp and symbol of royalty, but is sculptured in all the temples, blazoned on the furniture of the houses, and interwoven with the vestments 2" of the chief nobility. The emperor bears a dragon as his armorial device; and the same figure is engraved on his sceptre and diadem, as well as on all the vases of the imperial palace.
The DRAGON is also mixed up with many of their religious legends. The Chinese believe that "there is a dragon of extraordinary strength and sovereign power, which is in heaven, in the air, on the waters, and on the mountains 3." A property so divine must have originated in the attribution of this sacred animal to the Creator of the universe. For though it might apply partly to the spiritual presence of the evil one, yet in China this religious emblem belonged rather to the Agathodæmon. At the sacred washing of Confucius, soon after his birth, two dragons were fabled to have attended 1, to intimate probably that the young philosopher was, in an especial manner, under the protection of the deity 2.
Father Martin, one of the Jesuits who obtained a settlement in China, says, that "the Chinese delight in mountains and high places, because there lives the dragon upon whom their good fortune depends. They call him 'the Father of happiness.' To this dragon they erect temples shaded with groves 3."
Here we perceive the union of two primeval superstitions, Serpent-worship and Grove-worship, each of them commemorative of the Fall in Paradise.
The Chinese god, Fohi, is said to have had the form of a man, terminating in the tail of a snake: which is not only a proof of the early existence of serpent-worship in China, but also shows that the dragon and the snake of Chinese mythology were cognate. Such a form, also, had the Athenian Cecrops and Erectheus, and the Egyptian Typhon 1.
There was a remarkable superstition in regard to a serpent of enormous bulk which girded the world, current in the mythology of almost every nation where ophiolatreia prevailed: nor was China exempt from the general credulity. This idea, perhaps, originated in the early consecration of the serpent to the sun: and the subsequent conversion of a serpent biting his tail, into an emblem of the Sun's path. This hierogram was again considered as typical of eternity, partly from the serpent being a symbol of Deity; partly from the perfect figure of a circle thus formed, without beginning or end; and partly from an opinion of the eternity of matter.
In countries where the TWO PRINCIPLES were represented by two serpents, instead of the ecliptic, the solstitial colures were described under these symbols. Thus, in Egyptian hieroglyphics, two serpents intersecting each other at right angles, upon a globe, denoted the earth. These rectangular intersections were at the solstitial points 1.
The genius of superstition soon resolved the imaginary into real serpents; of which metamorphosis we have an instance in the fictions of the Chinese, who are said to be "superstitious in choosing a plot of ground to erect a dwelling-house or sepulchre: conferring it with the head, tail, and feet of divers dragons which live under our earth, whence depends all good or bad fortunes 2."
The same poetical fiction was current in Hindûstan, where there is a tradition that the founder of Delhi, when about to lay the foundation of that city, was told by a Brahmin, that "provided he placed the seat of his government on the head of the serpent that supports the world his throne and kingdom would last for ever 3."
In Hindû mythology, the serpent Asootee enfolds the globe 1; and on every eclipse the Hindûs believe that the sun or moon is seized by a large serpent or dragon. The same notion obtains in China 2. This is the imaginary serpent of the constellation Draco, and the superstition may be a remnant of the tradition of "the war in heaven, when Michael, and his angels fought against the dragon 3." The dragon and the serpent are the fifth and sixth signs of the Chinese Zodiac.
The superstition of JAPAN was in every respect similar to that of China. The DRAGON was held in equal veneration in both countries. "The chronicles and histories of the gods and heroes of Japan are full of fabulous stories of this animal. They believe that it dwells at the bottom of the sea 4, as its proper element. They represent it in their books as a huge, long, four-footed snake Some of the Japanese emperor's cloth, his arms, scimetars, knives, and the like; as also the furniture and hangings of the imperial palace, are adorned with figures of this dragon 1." The Japanese soldiers eat the flesh of the serpent called Fitakutz, "believing firmly that it has the virtue of making them bold and courageous 2."
There is reason to believe that temple-worship was formerly paid to the dragon in Japan. Kœmpfer being once on a journey, a temple was pointed out to him which, his guides said, had been erected in memory of a victory gained on the shores of the lake Oitz, by a famous dragon over a scolopendra 3.
VI. BURMAH.--The neighbouring countries of Siam and Burmah, partaking with the Chinese in the religion of Budh, partook with them also in the adoration of the serpent: such, at least, was the case in former times.
I have a Burmese illuminated manuscript in my possession, exhibiting, apparently in the successive order of events, the life of some deity--probably Guadma. One of the first pictures in the series represents this good genius attacked by the evil spirit. The next compartment presents two men with a basket hanging from a pole between them, and proceeding through a wood, as if on an important errand. We see the same men, with the same basket, in the next picture. It is now deposited on the ground, and the two bearers upon their knees, in the attitude of supplication, before an enormous dragon enveloped in flames! On a mound before him are two trees; and the votaries hold up each a bough in his hand.
Adoration is, unquestionably, intended in this representation: and, reasoning from the connection of this picture with the preceding, which describes the assault of the evil spirit upon the passive and praying image of the good dæmon, we cannot be charged with extraordinary credulity if we refer the whole to some dark tradition respecting the events in Paradise.
The attitude of the two worshippers of the dragon, and the boughs in their hands, illustrate the scene in the beginning of the Œdipus Tyrannus of Sophocles, where the attendants of the priest of Thebes appear, ἱκτηρίοις κλάδοισιν ἐξεστεμμένοι, with the boughs of supplication in their hands. The scene is at Thebes, an ophite city.
VII. JAVA.--A worship compounded of the Brahminical and Budh superstitions, prevailed originally in Java. Sir Stamford Raffles, in exploring the ruined temples, found many images which were adorned with the sacred serpent. Gigantic figures, placed at the portals, were armed with a club in one hand, and a writhing snake in the other. Small twisted snakes also formed their armlets; and one, passing diagonally across the body, represented a belt 1. In the temple of Kedal is an idol, on one side of which are three serpents of an enormous magnitude, intertwining over the head of the image. A female figure, with a serpent also, reclines over it 2:
Over the portal of the great temple of Chandi Sewu is "a very large and terrible gorgon visage 3." These gorgon visages are not uncommon, and are probably a form of the ophite hierogram, denoting consecration, such as we see over the portals of some of the Egyptian temples.
All the Javanese temples are pyramidal: which is a figure dedicated to the solar deity: and the same gorgon visages, as emblems of consecration, appear over the niches which contain the images.
The symbolical serpent, at least, was therefore once worshipped in Java.
CHAPTER I. SERPENT-WORSHIP IN ASIA.
THE WORSHIP OF THE SERPENT is supposed by Bryant to have commenced in Chaldæa; and to have been the "first variation from the purer Zabaism 1."
That it was intimately connected with Zabaism cannot be doubted; for the most prevailing emblem of the solar god was the SERPENT 2: and wherever the Zabæan idolatry was the religion, the SERPENT was the sacred symbol. But the UNIVERSALITY of serpent-worship, and the strong traces which it has left in ASTRONOMICAL MYTHOLOGY, seem to attest an origin coëval with Zabaism itself.
The earliest authentic record of SERPENT-WORSHIP is to be found in the astronomy of Chaldæa and China; but the extensive diffusion of this remarkable superstition through the remaining regions of the globe, where Chinese wisdom never penetrated, and Chaldæan philosophy was but feebly reflected, authorizes the inference that neither China nor Chaldæa was the mother, but that both were the children of this idolatry. That accidental circumstances very materially affected the religions of the early heathen at different times, by introducing innovations both in gods and altars, worship and sacrifices, cannot be denied; but it is equally true, that uniformly with the progress of the first deviation from the truth, has advanced the sacred serpent from Paradise to Peru. To follow the traces of this sacred serpent is the intention of the following treatise: and it is confidently expected that few ancient nations of any celebrity will be found which have not, at some time or other, admitted the serpent into their religion, either as a symbol of divinity, or a charm, or an oracle, or A GOD 1. Into the creed of some he
has insinuated himself in all these characters, and is so mixed up with their traditions of the ORIGIN and END of EVIL, that we cannot, without violence to all rules of probability, reject the consequence--that the prototype of this idolatry was THE SERPENT IN PARADISE.
1. BABYLON.--In tracing the progress of the sacred serpent, we commence with ASIA, as the mother country of mankind; and in Asia, with BABYLON, as the most ancient seat of an established priesthood.
The information which we possess concerning the minute features of Babylonian idolatry, is from various causes very narrowly circumscribed. Either the classical writers who visited Babylon were not admitted into the arcana of the Chaldæan worship, or they were contented with giving a short and summary account of it; ex-pending the chief strength of their descriptive powers upon the history, policy, and magnificence of the mother of cities. Herodotus, whose diffuseness on the history and customs of the Babylonians is considerable, enters but little into their religion; and Diodorus Siculus, minute in his measurements of the walls and gardens, comprises his description of the temple of Belus in a few sentences.
Ophiolatreia, as a recognized religion, was nearly extinct when Diodorus visited Babylon, for the city was almost deserted by its inhabitants, and the public edifices were crumbling to decay. But the silence of Herodotus is the more remarkable, since he mentions the serpent-worship of both Egypt and Greece, which was prevalent in his time. The idolatry could scarcely be obsolete in Babylon at that period, since it existed in full vigour but seventy years before, in the days of Daniel; and though it received a signal overthrow from its exposure by that prophet, yet the tumultuous conduct of the Babylonians on that occasion, as it evinces their attachment to the idolatry, warrants the inference that they would cling to it long after its abolition, even by a royal decree 1. But most probably Herodotus did not take the trouble to inquire into the superstitions of the common people, being content to describe what was the established religion; and even this he notices in a very cursory manner.
From Diodorus, however, we learn what is sufficient to assure us, that the serpent, as an object of worship, was not altogether forgotten in Babylon, though disguised under the more specious appearance of symbolical sanctity. He informs us, that in the temple of Bel, or Belus, was "an image of the goddess Rhea, sitting on a golden throne; at her knees stood two lions, and near her very large SERPENTS of silver, thirty talents each in weight." There was also an image of Juno, holding in her right hand the head of a SERPENT 1."
The name of the national god BEL is supposed to signify nothing more than "Lord;" and was also sometimes appropriated to deified heroes 2. It is more probably an abbreviation of OB-EL 3,--"The Serpent-god." The Greeks, remarks Bryant, called him BELIAR, which is singularly interpreted by Hesychius to signify a DRAGON, or GREAT SERPENT 4. From which we may conclude that the serpent was, at least, an emblem or symbol of BEL. But if the apocryphal history of "BEL AND THE DRAGON" be founded upon any tradition, we must conclude that the dragon, or serpent, (for the words are synonymous,) was something more than a mere symbol: we must conclude, that LIVE SERPENTS were kept at Babylon as objects of adoration; or, at least, of veneration, as oracular or talismanic. This custom was observed at Thebes in Egypt 1, and at Athens 2; and therefore there is nothing incredible in the fact at Babylon. However suspiciously then we may regard the apocryphal writings in general, we are constrained to admit that the author of "Bel and the Dragon," though he may have embellished the narrative, has given us a true picture of Babylonian superstition.
In that same place there was a GREAT DRAGON, which they of Babylon WORSHIPPED. And the king said unto Daniel, 'Wilt thou say that this is of brass? lo! he eateth and drinketh: thou canst not say he is no LIVING GOD: therefore WORSHIP HIM.'"
From the Chaldæans, we are told, that the Hebrews obtained the word ABADON, as a title of the "Prince of Darkness." This word may signify THE SERPENT-LORD." Heinsius 1 (cited by Bryant) makes Abadon to be the same as the Grecian Python. "It is not to be doubted that the Pythian Apollo is that evil spirit whom the Hebrews call OB and ABADON; the Hellenists, APOLLYON; and the other Greeks, APOLLO. This is corroborated by the testimony of St. John, who says, "They had a king over them which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abadon; but in the Greek (Hellenistic) tongue hath his name Apollyon 2." This same angel of the bottomless pit," is in another place called by the Evangelist, "the dragon, that old serpent which is the Devil and Satan 3."
Subject to the king of Babylon was Assyria; and the people of this country are said to have borne "a dragon" upon their standard 4. It is observed by Bryant, that in most countries the original military standard was descriptive of the deity they worshipped. It is certain that the Roman soldiers paid great veneration to their military insignia, almost amounting to worship: from which we may infer, that the devices on them were, originally, emblems of the gods. Their chief ensign, the eagle, was sacred to Jupiter. From the practice of the Romans, we may obtain an insight into that of the other nations of antiquity; for in matters of superstition it is astonishing how nearly people, geographically the most remote, approached each other.
From the Assyrians, the emperors of Constantinople are said to have borrowed the dragon standard 1. The same standard was also borne by the Parthians 2, Scythians 3, Saxons 4, Chinese, Danes 5, and Egyptians,--people who were in a greater or less degree addicted to serpent-worship. We may therefore infer, that the dragon ensign of the Assyrians denoted their devotion to the same idolatry.
II. PERSIA.--The serpent-worship of Persia is more noticed by authors than that of Babylonia. The dracontic standard distinguished the Persians as well as the Assyrian; for among the spoils taken by Aurelian from Zenobia were "Persici Dracones 1;" which were doubtless military ensigns, for the Persians assisted the queen of Palmyra on that occasion. This, according to our hypothesis, would denote that the Persians venerated the serpent; an inference which is abundantly proved from their mythology.
In the mythology of Persia we may look for the remnant of the ancient Chaldæan philosophy: and in proportion as we establish the prevalence of ophiolatreia in Persia, in the same proportion, at least, we may infer that it once obtained in Babylon.
So strongly marked was this character of idolatry in the Persian religion, that Eusebius does not hesitate to affirm, "they all worshipped the first principles under the form of SERPENTS, having dedicated to them temples in which they performed sacrifices, and held festivals and orgies, esteeming them THE GREATEST OF GODS, and GOVERNORS OF THE UNIVERSE 1."
"The first principles" were Ormuzd and Ahriman, the good and evil deity, whose contention for the universe was represented in Persian mythology, by two serpents contending for the MUNDANE EGG. They are standing upon their tails, and each of them has fastened upon the object in dispute with his teeth. The egg for which they contend, represented the universe in the mythologies of India, Egypt, and Persia. An engraving of this may be seen in Montfaucon. But the EVIL PRINCIPLE was more particularly represented by the serpent, as we may infer from a fable in the Zenda Vesta, in which that deity is described as having assumed a serpent's form to destroy the first of the human species, whom he accordingly poisoned 2.
A similar proof occurs in the Sadder 3, where we find the following precept:--"When you kill serpents, you shall repeat the Zenda Vesta, and thence you will obtain great merit: for it is the same as if you had killed so many devils." The Zenda Vesta to be here "repeated" might, perhaps, be that portion of it above alluded to--the assumption of the serpent's form by Ahriman. Connected with which, doubtless, was the popular belief of the Persians, that in the place of torment in the other world, scorpions and serpents gnaw and sting the feet of the wicked 1.
The God MITHRAS was represented encircled by a serpent: and in his rites a custom was observed similar to that practised in the Mysteries of Sebazius 2--a serpent3. In Montfaucon, vol. v. are some plates of Mithras, with a lion's head and a human body; and round him is coiled a large winged serpent. In the Supplement to vol. i. Montfaucon gives us a representation of a stone found at Lyons. It is a rude stone, exhibiting the head of a young and beardless man. Under it is the inscription, "DEO INVICTO MITHIR, SECUNDINUS DAT:" and under the inscription, the raised figure of a large serpent. Mithras was styled "invictus," and often represented with a youthful countenance, like that of Apollo.
Mandelsoe, who visited an ancient temple at Mardasch, saw in one of the recesses, "a square pillar, with the figure of a king upon it, worshipping the SUN, FIRE, and A SERPENT 1." "On the front of some ancient Persian grottoes, sacred to the solar deity, was figured a princely personage approaching an altar, on which the sacred fire is burning. Above all is the sun, and the figure of the deity in a cloud, with sometimes a sacred bandage, at other times a SERPENT entwined round his middle 2."
This is the God AZON, whose name, according to Bryant, signifies "the sun." The sacred girdle round his waist was esteemed an emblem of the orbit described by ZON, the sun. Hence girdles were called by the Greeks, zones 3.
This deity is sometimes represented differently 4, as a young man in profile, round whose
waist is drawn a ring loosely dependent. Through the lower part of this ring passes a serpent. At the upper limb of the circle, behind the figure, is a kind of mantle, composed of expanded wings.
In Kœmpfer's Amœnit. Exot. the same deity is described in a third form. He appears terminating at the waist in a circle, which is composed of a serpent: from each side of this circle proceed four wings. In his left hand he holds another circle, or ring, composed, like the former, of a serpent biting his own tail. This painting was at Persepolis. Here is also, in Kœmpfer, p. 312, a figure of a priest of this god, who appears to be approaching an altar with a serpent in his left hand. In the sky above is a representation of his deity, and behind the God is the Sun.
The hierogram of the CIRCLE WINGS and SERPENT is one of the most curious emblems of Ophiolatreia, and may be recognised in almost every country where Serpent-Worship prevailed. It forms a prominent feature in the Persian, Egyptian, and Mexican hieroglyphics. China, Hindûstan, Greece, Italy, and Asia Minor, as distinctly, though more rarely, exhibit it; and it has even been found in Britain. It seems to have been a general symbol of consecration, and as such is alluded to by the poet Persius:
Pinge duos angues; pueri sacer est locus.
Sat. I. 113. Here two snakes are mentioned, which is the hierogram of the worshippers of the Two PRINCIPLES, each of whom is represented by a serpent. Often, however, only one serpent appears issuing from the winged circle, and sometimes the circle is shorn of its wings. As a symbol of consecration, the ophite hierogram appears over the portals of the Egyptian temples, and may be recognised even in those of Java. The Druids, however, with the consistent magnificence which characterized their religion, transferred the symbol from the portal to the whole temple; and instead of placing the circle and serpent over the entrance into their sanctuaries, erected the entire building itself in the form of the ophite hierogram. Abury in Wiltshire, and Stanton Drew in Somersetshire, are interesting examples of this construction. The former represents the ophite hierogram with one serpent, the latter with two; the circle in each case being destitute of wings.
On the ruins of Naki Rustan, in Persia, is a beautiful specimen of the serpent and winged circle. In Egypt the hierogram underwent various transformations, of which the annexed plate gives a description. One of them, No. 2, is perhaps the device from which Malachi borrowed his elegant metaphor of "THE SUN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS arising with healing in his WINGS."
Selden remarks, that the figure in abbreviated writing among the Greeks, signified Δαιμων, the deity 1. The same figure, according to Kircher, was in use among the Brahmins of Hindûstan, as the "character mundi intelligibilis 2"--that is, of the Deity; for the universe and its Creator were often confounded by the ancient heathen. The emblem is evidently the globe and serpents of Egyptian mythology. In the same form was erected the celebrated temple of the Druids at Abury in Wiltshire. The upright stones which constituted the Adytum and its approaches, correctly delineated the circle, with the serpent passing through it 3.
In China, this sacred emblem assumed a form unknown in other countries. The serpents were separated from the annulus, being placed on each side of it, regarding each other. This was probably a representation of the two principles claiming the universe. This sacred ring between two serpents, is very common on the triumphal arches of Pekin. In Table XV. of Baron Vischer's Ancient Architecture 1, is an engraving of such an arch, and on it is this hierogram twice depicted.
But the most remarkable of all is the Mexican symbol. Here the two serpents, intertwining, form the circle with their own bodies, and in the mouth of each of them is a Human head!
A similar figure was assumed by the Ophite hierogram when it appeared on the staff of Mercury, and constituted the Caduceus. The serpents intertwining formed the circle.
The origin of this symbol is to be found in the deification of the serpent of Paradise. Its real meaning is involved in much mystery. In the former edition of this treatise I advanced the opinion, that it meant nothing more than the winged serpent once coiled. But further consideration has induced me to give up this conjecture as irreconcileable with the connection of the Serpent and Globe. The most probable meaning may be that which I have assigned in the chapter on Serpent Temples: namely, that it is the hierogram of the Solar Ophite God OPHEL or APOLLO; and assumed its present shape from the union of the two idolatries of the Serpent and the Sun. For the grounds of this conjecture I refer to the chapter cited.
At all events it is certain, that the tripartite emblem of the Serpent, Wings, and Circle, was an hieroglyphic of the DEITY; and this is sufficient for the purposes of my argument.
The Egyptian priests of a later and more metaphysical age, understanding this to be the signification of the hierogram, addressed themselves to the task of discovering the mystery. A most ingenious theory was accordingly devised by Hermes Trismegistus, who was probably the high-priest of the God Thoth, or "Thrice-great Hermes," whose name he assumed in compliance with the universal custom of the religion. The God Thoth was believed to have been the author of the Egyptian hieroglyphics.
According to this theory, the GLOBE typified the SIMPLE ESSENCE OF GOD, which he indifferently called THE FATHER, THE FIRST MIND, THE SUPREME WISDOM. THE SERPENT emerging from the GLOBE was the VIVIFYING POWER of GOD, which called all things into existence. This he named THE WORD.
The WINGS implied the MOVING or PENETRATIVE POWER of GOD, which pervaded all things. This he called LOVE.
The whole emblem was interpreted to represent the SUPREME BEING in his character of CREATOR and PRESERVER 1.
The definition of the Deity by TRISMEGISTUS is poetically sublime: "GOD is a CIRCLE whose CENTRE is EVERYWHERE, and CIRCUMFERENCE NOWHERE. 2"
The above description of the ophite hierogram, as may well be imagined, has persuaded many an ardent friend of revelation to recognise in this symbol of the hieroglyphical learning of Egypt, the mystery of the HOLY TRINITY. Kircher, Cudworth, and Maurice have all embraced this opinion; but the more cautious FABER 3, with the arguments of all before him, has come to the conclusion, that the doctrine of the Trinity, in its Christian sense, was unknown to the Pagans.
That there has been but one essential religion among the servants of the living God, from the fall to the present hour, no reasonable reader of the Holy Scriptures can deny. There never has been a time in which TRUE RELIGION has been wholly lost. Some few, if not "seven thousand," have always been "left" who "have not bowed the knee to Baal." But for these few, who have had a right knowledge and clear conception of the Deity as revealed to Adam, we must look among the holy "remnant," who were at one time confined to the family of NOAH, and at another to that of ABRAHAM. The rapidity with which the descendents of Noah fell into POLYTHEISM forbids our being too sanguine in the hope of discovering the doctrine of the Trinity among the Gentiles. This doctrine itself; corruptly remembered, perhaps gave rise to that very Polytheism which at length obliterated almost every trace of rational religion in the world.
If then "the globe, wings, and serpent," was among the Egyptians the hieroglyphic of the Trinity, we must suppose that the priests acquired this doctrine from their intercourse with the Israelites, rather than from any tradition of their ancestors. In this case, JOSEPH would be the Hermes Trismegistus, so lauded in Egyptian history, (as Bryant, indeed, supposes he was.) Joseph is said to have "taught" the Egyptian "senators wisdom 1:" but not, I apprehend, in a religious sense. The edict of Pharaoh, to which this probably alludes, is of a political nature 2. It would have been the extreme of indiscretion for Joseph to have attempted, without a divine command, to instruct the Egyptians in the mysteries of religion: and had such a command been issued, it would have been recorded by Moses. So far from the Egyptians having acquired religious instruction from the Israelites, every journey in the wilderness performed by the latter, proves that they learned idolatry from the Egyptians. "The golden calf" is a memorable instance, as copied from the rites of the sacred ox Apis.
Besides, it is more likely that Joseph, in his instructions on the mysteries of religion, would have begun with his own people, who seem not only to have been ignorant of the doctrine of the [paragraph continues] TRINITY, but of every rational idea of the UNITY of God, when Moses was commissioned to lead them from Egypt. Of this we have abundant proof in the diffidence with which he accepted the commission 1.
So gross was their ignorance, and so deep-rooted their prejudices, that the doctrine of the Trinity was never, indeed, fully explained to them, even by Moses. He deemed it a doctrine too dangerous for their idolatrously inclined minds to bear, lest in their ardour for the Polytheism which it was his object to eradicate, they should separate the Unity, and dishonour the Trinity--lest in their proneness to worship the MANY, they should forget that "JEHOVAH their GOD is ONE JEHOVAH 2."
I cannot therefore see that there is any conclusive testimony that the Egyptian hierogram of GLOBE, WINGS, and SERPENT, denoted the Trinity, in our sense of the term. Indeed, it may be doubted whether the definition of Hermes Trismegistus, adduced by Kircher, may not have been a "pious fraud" of some Egyptian Christian of the second or third century, whose imagination seized upon this popular emblem as a fit instrument for inculcating the truth.
But, whatever may have been the origin or meaning of this hierogram, one thing is clear, that the SERPENT attached to it was a TYPE OF DIVINITY; and this is enough to support the theory of the present volume, --that The Serpent of Paradise was the SERPENT-GOD of the Gentiles.
III. HINDÛSTAN.--As an emblem of divinity, the serpent enters deeply into the religion of the Brahmins; and, from the popular superstitions of the present race of Hindûs, we may infer that he was at one time an object of religious worship. The well known reluctance of the natives of Hindûstan to kill a snake, cannot be referred entirely to the doctrine of transmigration of souls. In Forbes's "Oriental Memoirs," we read of certain gardeners in Guzerat who would never suffer the snakes to be molested, calling them "father," "brother," and other endearing names, and looking upon them as something divine. The head-gardener, however, "paid them religious honours 1."
Here we observe a mixture of the original serpent-worship, with the more modern doctrine of transmigration.
But a more tangible proof that ophiolatreia did indeed exist in Hindûstan in former times, is furnished in the following fact, noticed in Purchas's Pilgrims. A king of Calicut "built cottages" for live serpents, whom he tended with peculiar care, and made it a capital crime for any person in his dominions to destroy a snake. "The natives looked upon serpents as endued with divine spirits 1."
From some such a notion may have been derived a custom which prevails in certain parts of Hindûstan to this day. The natives have a festival called "The Feast of the Serpents," at which every Hindû sets by a portion of his rice for the hooded snake on the outside of his house. By this offering he expects to propitiate those reptiles during the remainder of the year.
A further proof of the ancient prevalence of ophiolatreia in those countries, is afforded by the sculptures in the celebrated caverns of Salsette and Elephanta; where the deities either grasp serpents in their hands, or are enfolded by them. Serpents are also sculptured on the cornices surrounding the roofs of those caverns, and similarly delineated in the more modern pagodas 1. The god Sani, of the Hindûs, is represented on a raven, and encircled by two serpents, whose heads meet over that of the god 2.
Maurice supposes that by the serpentine circle over Sani, who is the Saturn of the Hindûs, the ring of that planet is denoted. If so, the discoveries of modern astronomy are little more than revivals of the ancient philosophy. But whether Sani be Saturn or the Sun, he is equally illustrative of our theory--that serpents were early emblems of divinity in Hindûstan. As such we find them employed in the religious festivals of the Hindûs 3, symbolizing some of their most awful deities.
Boodh and Jeyne are both adorned with the same emblem. The statue of Jeyne, who is said to be the Indian Æculapius, is turbaned by a seven-headed snake: the rim of the pedestal is embossed with serpents' heads. The same serpent also symbolizes Parus Nauth 1.
On a rock in the Ganges, in the province of Bahar, is a sculpture of Veshnu reposing on a coiled serpent, whose numerous folds are made to form a canopy over the sleeping god 2. This serpent is fabled to have been the goddess Devi or Isi, who assumed the figure to carry Veshnu over the waters of the Deluge 3. The sleep of Veshnu indicates the period between the two worlds. A similar sculpture is to be seen among the ruins of Mavalipuram, on the coast of Coromandel 4. Veshnu himself is sometimes represented encompassed in the folds of a serpent; and Twashta, the great artificer of the universe, who corresponds in Hindû mythology with the Cneph or Ptha of the Egyptians, is supposed to have borne the form of a serpent 5. Jagan-Nath (Juggernaut) is said to be sometimes worshipped under the form of a seven-headed dragon 6. The Hindû Deonaush (the Dionusus of the Greeks,) was metamorphosed into a snake 7: hence, probably the prominent figure which the serpent bore in the mysteries of Bacchus.
Mahadeva (a name of Siva,) is sometimes represented with a snake entwined about his neck; one round his hair, and armlets of serpents upon both arms 1.
Bhairava (an Avatar of Siva,) sits upon the coils of a serpent, whose head rises above that of the god 2.
Parvati, the consort of Siva, is represented with snakes about her neck and waist 3.
Hence we perceive that the serpent was an emblem not confined to one god, but common to many. "The fifth day of the bright half of the month Sravana is also sacred to the demigods in the forms of serpents 4."
This reptile, though the attribute of many of the Hindû deities, both benevolent and malignant, belonged more properly to the EVIL SPIRIT, of whom it is a sacred and terrific emblem. The king of the evil dæmons is called, in Hindû mythology, "the king of the serpents." His name is NAGA, and he is the prince of the Nagas, or [paragraph continues] Naigs. "In which Sanscrit appellation," observes Maurice, "we plainly trace the Hebrew nachash, which is the very word for the particular serpentine tempter, and, in general, for all serpents throughout the Old Testament 1." The Hindû Naraka, or hell, is fabled to consist of poisonous "snakes folded together in horrible contortions."
The malignant serpent Caliya, who was slain by Veshnu, (in his incarnation of Crishna), because he poisoned the air, and destroyed the herds on the banks of the Yamuna, was deified and worshipped by the Hindûs "in the same manner as Python was adored at Delphi 2."
To the evil dæmon, in the form of a great serpent, the Hindûs attributed the guardianship of treasures. A remarkable instance of this superstition occurs in Forbes's Oriental Memoirs. Having once the curiosity to open a vault in a deserted tower, in which treasure was reported to be concealed, under the guardianship of a dæmon in the form of a snake, he prevailed, with much difficulty, upon two men to descend; when, in strict accordance with the popular
belief, they found a large serpent in a torpid state. The two men were drawn up, and the reptile destroyed by fire; but nothing could induce the natives again to enter a place, which they now regarded more than ever as the residence of the evil spirit.
In Hindûstan prevailed, also, the general opinion which accompanied ophiolatreia in all its progress--that the serpent was of a prophetic nature 1.
The decay of ophiolatreia in Hindûstan may be readily accounted for by the exterminating religious wars which so long raged between the followers of Crishna and Budha. Budha was the serpent who carried off Ella the daughter of Ichswaca, the son of Manu--and hence the animosity against him. The children (i.e. the worshippers) of Budha, were the real Hindûs, and preserved the ophite sign of their race. They were distinguished by the banner of the serpent. The worshippers of Crishna adopted the eagle.
The worshippers of Crishna, Budha, and Surya (the sun) form the three idolatrous classes of India from the Ganges to the Caspian sea.
[paragraph continues] The children of Surya joined with those of Crishna against the Budhists, and at length almost exterminated the race. The Mahabharat records constant wars from "ancient times" between the worshippers of the Sun and the Tak or Takshac races. The word Takshac is frequently rendered "snake:" but Tak is the name of a mountain in the range west of India, and Hak was the word which designated a serpent. Alexander's ally Taxiles was doubtless an Ophite chief of this country, for he took him to see an enormous dragon, the object of worship among his subjects 1. The name Taxiles was probably titular, since he was called OnuphisOnuphis by the Greeks, who had acquired the knowledge of this title from their intercourse with Egypt, and her priesthood of ON and OPH 2.
Pursuing our inquiries, we find that ophiolatreia prevailed to an equal extent in Cachmere, where there were no less than seven hundred places in which carved images of serpents were worshipped 1. And even in Tibet may be often seen, the great Chinese dragon ornamenting the temples of the Grand Lama 2. But the chief seats of ophiolatreia in this quarter of the modern world were in China and Japan.
IV. CEYLON.--The religion of the natives of Ceylon is the Boodh, which is a corruption of the ancient ophiolatreia. "The Singalese," says Dr. Davy 3, "in general rather venerate than dread the hooded snake. They conceive that it belongs to another world, and that when it appears in this is only a visitor. They imagine that it possesses great power, and is somewhat akin to the gods, and superior to man. In consequence they superstitiously refrain from killing it." This is the snake made use of by the serpent charmers. Its image is also seen round the necks of some of the gods. The mythological history of this serpent is curious. They live in the world of spirits in a place peculiarly devoted to themselves, and are said to have a faculty of locomotion, and a splendour of appearance like the gods. Nevertheless, they are supposed to have been once human beings, who forfeited their estate by indulging the sin of malice.
V. CHINA AND JAPAN.--The great Chinese DRAGON, so conspicuous in every public and private edifice, was the symbolical serpent of ancient mythology, under a more fanciful and poetic form. "It was the genial banner of the empire, and indicated every thing that was sacred in it 1." "It was not only the stamp and symbol of royalty, but is sculptured in all the temples, blazoned on the furniture of the houses, and interwoven with the vestments 2" of the chief nobility. The emperor bears a dragon as his armorial device; and the same figure is engraved on his sceptre and diadem, as well as on all the vases of the imperial palace.
The DRAGON is also mixed up with many of their religious legends. The Chinese believe that "there is a dragon of extraordinary strength and sovereign power, which is in heaven, in the air, on the waters, and on the mountains 3." A property so divine must have originated in the attribution of this sacred animal to the Creator of the universe. For though it might apply partly to the spiritual presence of the evil one, yet in China this religious emblem belonged rather to the Agathodæmon. At the sacred washing of Confucius, soon after his birth, two dragons were fabled to have attended 1, to intimate probably that the young philosopher was, in an especial manner, under the protection of the deity 2.
Father Martin, one of the Jesuits who obtained a settlement in China, says, that "the Chinese delight in mountains and high places, because there lives the dragon upon whom their good fortune depends. They call him 'the Father of happiness.' To this dragon they erect temples shaded with groves 3."
Here we perceive the union of two primeval superstitions, Serpent-worship and Grove-worship, each of them commemorative of the Fall in Paradise.
The Chinese god, Fohi, is said to have had the form of a man, terminating in the tail of a snake: which is not only a proof of the early existence of serpent-worship in China, but also shows that the dragon and the snake of Chinese mythology were cognate. Such a form, also, had the Athenian Cecrops and Erectheus, and the Egyptian Typhon 1.
There was a remarkable superstition in regard to a serpent of enormous bulk which girded the world, current in the mythology of almost every nation where ophiolatreia prevailed: nor was China exempt from the general credulity. This idea, perhaps, originated in the early consecration of the serpent to the sun: and the subsequent conversion of a serpent biting his tail, into an emblem of the Sun's path. This hierogram was again considered as typical of eternity, partly from the serpent being a symbol of Deity; partly from the perfect figure of a circle thus formed, without beginning or end; and partly from an opinion of the eternity of matter.
In countries where the TWO PRINCIPLES were represented by two serpents, instead of the ecliptic, the solstitial colures were described under these symbols. Thus, in Egyptian hieroglyphics, two serpents intersecting each other at right angles, upon a globe, denoted the earth. These rectangular intersections were at the solstitial points 1.
The genius of superstition soon resolved the imaginary into real serpents; of which metamorphosis we have an instance in the fictions of the Chinese, who are said to be "superstitious in choosing a plot of ground to erect a dwelling-house or sepulchre: conferring it with the head, tail, and feet of divers dragons which live under our earth, whence depends all good or bad fortunes 2."
The same poetical fiction was current in Hindûstan, where there is a tradition that the founder of Delhi, when about to lay the foundation of that city, was told by a Brahmin, that "provided he placed the seat of his government on the head of the serpent that supports the world his throne and kingdom would last for ever 3."
In Hindû mythology, the serpent Asootee enfolds the globe 1; and on every eclipse the Hindûs believe that the sun or moon is seized by a large serpent or dragon. The same notion obtains in China 2. This is the imaginary serpent of the constellation Draco, and the superstition may be a remnant of the tradition of "the war in heaven, when Michael, and his angels fought against the dragon 3." The dragon and the serpent are the fifth and sixth signs of the Chinese Zodiac.
The superstition of JAPAN was in every respect similar to that of China. The DRAGON was held in equal veneration in both countries. "The chronicles and histories of the gods and heroes of Japan are full of fabulous stories of this animal. They believe that it dwells at the bottom of the sea 4, as its proper element. They represent it in their books as a huge, long, four-footed snake Some of the Japanese emperor's cloth, his arms, scimetars, knives, and the like; as also the furniture and hangings of the imperial palace, are adorned with figures of this dragon 1." The Japanese soldiers eat the flesh of the serpent called Fitakutz, "believing firmly that it has the virtue of making them bold and courageous 2."
There is reason to believe that temple-worship was formerly paid to the dragon in Japan. Kœmpfer being once on a journey, a temple was pointed out to him which, his guides said, had been erected in memory of a victory gained on the shores of the lake Oitz, by a famous dragon over a scolopendra 3.
VI. BURMAH.--The neighbouring countries of Siam and Burmah, partaking with the Chinese in the religion of Budh, partook with them also in the adoration of the serpent: such, at least, was the case in former times.
I have a Burmese illuminated manuscript in my possession, exhibiting, apparently in the successive order of events, the life of some deity--probably Guadma. One of the first pictures in the series represents this good genius attacked by the evil spirit. The next compartment presents two men with a basket hanging from a pole between them, and proceeding through a wood, as if on an important errand. We see the same men, with the same basket, in the next picture. It is now deposited on the ground, and the two bearers upon their knees, in the attitude of supplication, before an enormous dragon enveloped in flames! On a mound before him are two trees; and the votaries hold up each a bough in his hand.
Adoration is, unquestionably, intended in this representation: and, reasoning from the connection of this picture with the preceding, which describes the assault of the evil spirit upon the passive and praying image of the good dæmon, we cannot be charged with extraordinary credulity if we refer the whole to some dark tradition respecting the events in Paradise.
The attitude of the two worshippers of the dragon, and the boughs in their hands, illustrate the scene in the beginning of the Œdipus Tyrannus of Sophocles, where the attendants of the priest of Thebes appear, ἱκτηρίοις κλάδοισιν ἐξεστεμμένοι, with the boughs of supplication in their hands. The scene is at Thebes, an ophite city.
VII. JAVA.--A worship compounded of the Brahminical and Budh superstitions, prevailed originally in Java. Sir Stamford Raffles, in exploring the ruined temples, found many images which were adorned with the sacred serpent. Gigantic figures, placed at the portals, were armed with a club in one hand, and a writhing snake in the other. Small twisted snakes also formed their armlets; and one, passing diagonally across the body, represented a belt 1. In the temple of Kedal is an idol, on one side of which are three serpents of an enormous magnitude, intertwining over the head of the image. A female figure, with a serpent also, reclines over it 2:
Over the portal of the great temple of Chandi Sewu is "a very large and terrible gorgon visage 3." These gorgon visages are not uncommon, and are probably a form of the ophite hierogram, denoting consecration, such as we see over the portals of some of the Egyptian temples.
All the Javanese temples are pyramidal: which is a figure dedicated to the solar deity: and the same gorgon visages, as emblems of consecration, appear over the niches which contain the images.
The symbolical serpent, at least, was therefore once worshipped in Java.
cont.
VIII. ARABIA.--Returning towards the centre and source of
ophiolatreia, we arrive in Arabia: and here also are traces, though
almost obliterated, of the ancient serpent-worship. Of the Caaba of
Mecca, as connected with this idolatry, we shall have occasion to speak
hereafter. But in this place we may observe, that the language of the
country retains an expression of its original religion, which is not a
little remarkable. The same word is employed to denote both "adoration" and "the serpent;" from whence Dickinson infers, that "the Arabians formerly worshipped serpents 1."
We may observe, also, that Philostratus 2 attributes the same superstitious practice, with the same views, to the natives of Arabia and Hindûstan: viz. that of "eating the heart and liver of serpents, for the purpose of acquiring a knowledge of the thoughts and languages of animals." This notion, perhaps, originated in the traditionary account of the PROPHETIC SERPENT, the memory of whose oracle is so strongly impressed upon the page of antiquity.
IX. SYRIA.--From Arabia we pass into the Land of Canaan, for so many ages the theatre upon which truth and superstition contended for the ascendancy. The country which we include under the general name of SYRIA extends from the Euphrates to the Mediterranean sea, on one side; and from Mount Taurus to Arabia, on the other. It includes, therefore, the whole of Phœnicia and Palestine, the territories of Damascus, and the possessions of Solomon.
The Phœnicians, according to Sanchoniathon, cited by Eusebius 1, were among the earliest of the nations that embraced ophiolatreia; and the author of this idolatry is said to have been TAAUTUS. Sanchoniathon calls him "a God 2," and says, that he first made an image of Cœlus, and afterwards of Saturn; and then invented hieroglyphics 3. He is supposed to be the same as the Hermes Trismegistus of Egypt, where the was called Thoth, and deified. The words of Sanchoniathon are the following: "Taautus consecrated the species of dragons and serpents; and the Phœnicians and Egyptians followed him in this superstition."
Hence we may infer, that Taautus was the first person who introduced into Phœnicia both zabaism and serpent-worship. For such must be the meaning of the expressions that he was "the first who made an image of CŒLUS,"--that is, represented "the heavenly host" by visible symbols, and "consecrated DRAGONS and SERPENTS."
The UNION of these two superstitions, intimated by the attribution of them to the same inventor, proves the origin of the serpent-worship to be co-ordinate with that of the sun, or of the celestial bodies. From which we may argue, that Taautus was the leader of the first colony after the flood which settled in Phœnicia; out of which he may have passed easily into Egypt, if we take the word Phœnicia in its most extended sense, as including the whole land of Canaan. There is then no difficulty in conceiving that the Phœnician TAUT and the Egyptian THOTH were the same person. The intimate connexion of the latter with the serpent-worship of Egypt we shall observe in the sequel.
The prevalence of ophiolatreia in the land of Canaan, is therefore directly shown upon historical testimony: it is proved, collaterally, by the traditions of the country, and the remains of serpent-worship which was occasionally visible in the sacred and classical writings. The name of the sacred serpent, according to Bryant 1, (who has taken great pains to arrive at accuracy in this statement,) was in the ancient language of Canaan, variously pronounced AUB, AB; OUB, OB; OPH, OP; EPH, EV . . . . . all referrible to the original אוב, or אב; which being derived from אב (inflare), was, perhaps, applied to the serpent from his peculiarity of inflation when irritated.
The first oracle mentioned in history was dedicated to the serpent-god, who was known in Canaan by the name of OB, or AUB: hence arose the notion that the oracular response of the priestess of these serpent temples must be always preceded by a mysterious inflation, as if actuated by the internal presence of the divineSpirit. Thus Virgil describes the Pythian priestess--
------------- Ait, "Deus, ecce Deus!" cui talia fanti
------------------------------------------ pectus anhelum,
Et rabie fera corda tument, majorque videri,
Nec mortale sonans: adflata est Numine quando
Jam propiore Dei.
Æneid. vi. 46, &c. The whole of this notion of necessary inflation was taken up by the Greeks, from mistaking the word OB, (the name of the Deity,) for the word OB, that property of inflation, from whence the name was derived: OB signifying both the serpent, and his property of inflation 1.
The first mention of the God OB occurs in the Scriptures. Moses refers to his oracle, when he commands every AUB, AB, or OB, to be put to death:
"A man also, or woman, that hath a familiar spirit, (אוב) shall surely be put to death." (Levit. xx. 27. Deut. xviii. 1.1.)
The word אוב is translated by the Septuagint, ventriloquist,--one that speaks from his belly. This is the Greek notion of inflation, adopted by the Septuagint in accommodation to the received opinions respecting the Pythian priestess. The English version "who hath a familiar spirit," is too indefinite; and the septuagint, "who is a ventriloquist," too paraphrastic, to express the meaning of Moses. We must therefore look for another. In doing so, we may remark, that it was not an unusual custom of the Gentiles for the priest or priestess of any God to take the name of the deity they served. Thus Clemens Alexandrinus calls the priest of Cnuphis in Egypt, SECNUPHIS. This was the priest with whom Plato conversed 1, and his god was the same as the OB of Canaan; that is, the SERPENT-GOD of the country. We read also of OINUPHIS, a priest of Heliopolis, from whom Pythagoras is said to have learned astronomy 2. Heliopolis, "the city of the SUN," was called in Egypt ON, which was a title of the solar deity. OINUPHIS therefore, (or rather ONUPHIS,) was the solar deity ON, symbolized by the sacred serpent OPH. In this case therefore, as in the former, the priest assumed the cognomen of his God. Again, Eudoxus was taught astronomy by another priest of Heliopolis, whose name was CONUPHIS, or C’NUPHIS 1.
For these examples I am indebted to Jablonski, who says that SECNUPHIS means literally SE-ICH-CNUPHIS, "the servant of the god Cnuphis."
In like manner we find that the priestess of DELPHI was called PYTHIA, from her deity PYTHON: and the Druid who was the minister of the British god HU, was called "an ADDER;" because adders were symbolical of the god whom he served, whose chief title was "HU, the DRAGON-RULER of the world 2."
It is a curious coincidence, that as the witch of Endor is called oub, and the African sorceress obi, from the serpent deity OUB; so the old English name of a witch, hag, bears apparent relationship to the word hak, the ancient British name of a species of snake.
These examples I have taken, exclusively, from the worshippers of the SERPENT-GOD in Egypt, Greece, and Britain, among whom the custom seems to have been more prevalent than among the votaries of the other heathen deities. To these we may add the example of the emperor Elagabalus assuming the name of the Syrian god of Emesa, at whose shrine he officiated before he was invested with the Roman purple. We shall find in the sequel, that this deity was identical, or nearly so, with the deity whose worship we are now investigating. The difference being, that OB was simply the serpent-god; whereas ELAGABALUS was the solar deity symbolized by the serpent.
From these parallels we may infer, that the priest or priestess of OB, in Canaan, assumed the appellation of the deity whom they served.
We may therefore render Levit. xx. 27--"A man also, or woman among you, who is an OB, (i.e. a priest or priestess of OB,) 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."
Again, the woman of Endor, to whom Saul applied for an oracle, is called בעלת־אוב; the literal meaning of which is "one that hath OB," which is synonymous with "a priestess of OB."
The serpent OB, thus worshipped in Canaan as oracular, was called, "THE GOOD DÆMON," as we learn from Eusebius, citing Sanchoniathon--"The Phœnicians called this animal (the sacred serpent) AGATHODÆMON: the Egyptians likewise called him CNEPH, and added to him the head of a hawk, because of its activity 1."
The title OB, or AB, was frequently compounded with ON, a name of the SUN, because the serpent was considered symbolical of that deity. This symbolical worship was of very ancient date in Phœnicia, as we learn from Sanchoniathon 2, who tells us, "The son of THABION was the first hierophant of Phœnicia."
Prophets and priests are frequently called in mythology the sons of the God whom they worshipped. The son of Thabion, therefore, was the priest of Thabion. Now Thabion is a compound word, TH’-AB-ION: of which the initial letters "TH’" signify "God." They are an abbreviation of the word "THEUTH," "from which the Greeks formed ΘΕΟΣ, which with that nation was the most general name of the Deity 3." "THABION," therefore implies, THE GOD ABION,"--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 1, 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 comes the word OPHITES, by which the Greek historians designated the worshippers of the serpent. The Greek word Οφις, a serpent, is derived from Oph, the Egyptian name for that reptile 2; the same as Eph. The Hivites who were left "to prove Israel 3," inhabited Mount Lebanon, "from Mount Baalhermon unto the entering in of Hamath." The children of Israel intermarried with them, "and served their gods." These were called BAALIM, which being in the plural number, may mean the god BAAL or BEL, under different forms of worship; of which that of the serpent was one; as we have seen under the article "Ophiolatreia in Babylon."
The extent to which this worship prevailed, may be estimated by the fact of its surviving to the time of Hezekiah, when the Jews "burned incense" to the brazen serpent which had been laid up among the sacred relics, as a memorial of their deliverance from the serpents in the wilderness. Hezekiah "removed the high places, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made; for UNTO THOSE DAYS the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehustan 1,"--i.e. a piece of brass, by way of contempt.
But the worship of the serpent was not so easily suppressed in Canaan. The Jewish polity being broken up, the lurking ophites crept out of their obscurity; and in the second century brought dishonour on the Christian religion, by claiming an affinity of faith with the worshippers of JESUS.
These Christian heretics were exposed by Epiphanius 2, under the name of Οφῖται. Clemens Alexandrinus also mentions them; and Tertullian describes their tenets--"Accesserunt his hæretici etiam 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 potentiam et majestatem, Moyses æreum posuit serpentem, et quicunque in eum aspexerunt, sanitatem consecuti sunt. Ipse, aiunt, præterea, in Evangelio imitatur serpentis ipsius sacram potestatem dicendo, 'et sicut Moyses exaltavit serpentem in deserto, ita exaltari oportet Filium Hominis.' Ipsum introducunt ad benedicenda Eucharistia 1."
A more ingenious perversion of Scripture than the foregoing, may scarcely be found in the annals of heresy.
Epiphanius says, that "the Ophites sprung out of the Nicolaitans and Gnostics, and were so called from the serpent which they worshipped." The Gnostics, he informs us in another place 2, "taught that the ruler of this world was of a dracontic form." "The Ophites," he observes, "attribute all wisdom to the serpent of paradise, and say that he was the author of knowledge to men." "They keep a live serpent in a chest; and at the time of the mysteries entice him out by placing bread before him upon a table. Opening his door he comes out, and having ascended the table, folds himself about the bread. This they call a perfect sacrifice. They not only break and distribute this among the votaries, but whosoever will, may kiss the serpent 1. This the wretched people call THE EUCHARIST. They conclude the mysteries by singing an hymn THROUGH HIM to the supreme Father 2.
The above account of Epiphanius forcibly reminds us of the mysteries of Bacchus, in which serpents were carried in covered baskets; and in which cakes and new bread were given to the votaries. Demosthenes, in one of his most splendid passages of sarcasm, describes his antagonist Æschines under the ludicrous character of a Bacchans, "pressing tight in his hands the Parian serpents, and brandishing them over his head, and shouting 'Euoi, Saboi!' dancing meantime, and crying 'Hyes Attes!' 'Attes Hyes!'" He calls him, contemptuously, "a chief leader" of the mysteries, and chest-bearer, that is, carrying the snake-basket. For which extravagancies he receives his reward in "CAKES and NEW BREAD 1."
In the Bacchanalian Mysteries, also, there was a consecrated cup of wine, handed round after supper, called "the cup of the Agathodæmon:" which was received with much shouting 2. The Christian Ophites, therefore, preserving the memory of their Bacchanalian orgies, would naturally confound the observances of the Lord's Supper with the practices incident to their heathen festival. The hymn with which they concluded their idolatrous ceremonies, addressed through the serpent to the Supreme Father, is a memorial of the hymn sung to Python on every seventh day at Delphi 3.
These opinions of the Gnostic Ophites were blended with the old Magian superstition of Persia by Manes, a celebrated heretic of the third century; who revived ophiolatreia, in his native country, under the name of Christianity. He taught, 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 1."
Traces of ophiolatreia are visible in the neighbourhood of Damascus, where there were two ophite temples, converted, with the usual licence of poets, into "dragons 2."
The whole region of TRACHONITIS is supposed by Bryant to have received its name from the worship of the DRAGON, so common in those parts. The mistake of Τραχων for Δρακων is easy.
The subject of ophite temples is so full of curious information, that I shall reserve what I have gleaned upon it for a separate chapter. We may remark, however, in this place, that there is reason for supposing that the celebrated grove of Daphne, near Antioch, was (at least in part) devoted to the mysteries of the serpent. Its consecration to Apollo, the solar god of antiquity, who united in his rites the worship of the serpent, gives countenance to this opinion; but the corroboration is derived from a remarkable legend preserved in Strabo. It is said that the Macedonian kings of Syria first established the oracles,and planted the grove of Daphne 1; but the legend in question would argue for that secluded and voluptuous sanctuary a much higher antiquity. The Macedonian kings, in all probability, patronized the ancient GROVE-WORSHIP mentioned in Judges iii. 7, in connexion with the service of BAALIM, into which the children of Israel were seduced by the Hivites. The legend of Strabo informs us that the original name of the river Orontes was TYPHON; for there the serpent Typhon being struck by the lightning of Jupiter, in escaping cut the earth with his body as he writhed along; and springs of water issuing from the ground, formed the river, which, after him, was called Typhon 2.
Had ophiolatreia never existed in Daphne, such a legend as this would hardly have been recorded of the river which flowed by it. At Daphne there was a temple of Apollo, and a grove sacred to Diana; and it is a remarkable circumstance, that in almost every place where there was either, some legend of a serpent generally prevailed.
The serpent-worship of Syria is strongly marked in the religion of the people of Tyre. The Phœnicians of Tyre consecrated an image of the serpent, and suspended it in their temples, encircling in its folds the Mundane egg 1, the symbol of the universe. THE SERPENT denoted the Supreme Being, in his character of the vivifying principle. Macrobius informs us, that the Phœnicians worshipped Janus under the figure of a serpent, forming a circle, with his tail in his mouth; typifying the self-existence and eternity of the world 2.
The serpent was deemed particularly sacred to Æsculapius; and in his temples live serpents were kept for the purposes of adoration. There was a grove of Æsculapius near Sidon, on the banks of the Tamyras 3. From which we may infer that here also were kept live serpents, and worshipped.
The emperor Elagabalus was high priest of the god of that name, who had a temple at Emesa. "He imported into Rome small serpents of the Egyptian breed, which were called in that country Agathodæmons:" these he worshipped 1. Hence we may infer that this young emperor had been educated in the mysteries of ophiolatreia; an inference which is strengthened by the decomposition of his name, or rather that of his god.
Elagabal is perhaps EL-OG-OB-EL; that is, "the god OG, the serpent-god 2." This was the deity whose worship was conveyed into western Europe, under the title of OGHAM or OGMIUS, by the Phœnician mariners, and established in Gaul and Ireland, as we shall see in the chapters which treat of serpent-worship in those countries. He was a compound character between Hercules and Mercury, bearing as his symbol the club of the former, surmounted by the caduceus of the latter.
The first mention of this name in history is in the Scriptures, where it appears as the cognomen of the celebrated king of Bashan, overthrown by Joshua. He reigned over the territory of Argob 3, which was afterwards called by the Greeks, Trachonitis. Trachonitis we have already resolved into the "country of the dragon:" and the propriety of this resolution will appear from decomposing the word Argob into its component parts, AUR-OG-OB; of which the first signifies light; the second is the name of the deity; the third that of his symbol, the serpent. Faber thinks that OG is the DELUGE deified; whence is derived OC and OCEANUS. This, I believe is the general opinion. But whoever OG may have been, the word Argob is his title; and this title bears allusion to the solar deity AUR, and the serpent-deity AUB. And "the region of Argob" in his holy land. Upon this hypothesis the king of Bashan (OG) would be hierarch and king of Argob, assuming the name of his tutelar god--
"REX ANIUS, rex idem hominum, PHŒBIQUE sacerdos." Sandford, Dickinson, Vossius, and Gale, concur in identifying "OG, king of Bashan," with the Typhon or Python of mythology 1. I cannot say that the same arguments which weighed with these learned men have brought me to the same conclusion; but this much cannot, I think, be denied, that there is a strong connexion between THE WORSHIP OF OG, and OPHIOLATREIA. Beyond this, I would not desire to press the argument--but up to this point I would urge it. For even upon the supposition of OG being the deluge, the serpent would be his emblem; being in this character considered in all mythology--Asiatic, Egyptian, or Scandinavian. Elagabalus, therefore, was probably the same at Emesa, as OG, the king of Bashan, in Argob--the royal priest of the SERPENT SOLAR GOD.
But the serpent-worship of Syria, has left stronger records of its original prevalence than verbal coincidences. The coins of the Tyrians, as engraved in Maurice's Indian Antiquities, vol. 6, bear testimony to the existence and prevalence of this superstition in Phœnicia, in characters which it is impossible to mistake. It is true that these medals are of comparatively recent date, the oldest of them being posterior to Alexander the Great: but still they recognise the local superstition of that a era; and we know that the local religions of the Asiatics were rarely susceptible of innovation. Besides, we have already possessed ourselves of data which identify ophiolatreia as indigenous in the land of Canaan.
The following is a description of these interesting medals.
No. 1 represents a TREE between two rude stones, which are erect: round the trunk of the tree is coiled a SERPENT. At the lower part of the medal, in one corner, is an altar, denoting that the medal is descriptive of religious rites. The two rude stones are the Petræ Ambrosiæ, so well known to antiquaries, and of the kind of which the Celtic temples were composed. The two stones here are intended, doubtless, as a representation of an Ophite temple.
No. 2 represents, a burning altar. Two serpents are rising from the two front angles of the base. On the left, is the celebrated caduceus, without wings.
No. 3 exhibits a naked man standing between two serpents, which are erect upon one coil, and turning from him. This is a medal of Berytus--the rest are Tyrian.
No. 4 represents the Tyrian Hercules (Ogmius) contending with a serpent. The man has a large stone in his right hand, and is in the act of throwing it. The serpent is erect upon one coil. Behind the man is a sea shell, denoting Tyre.
No. 5 presents us with a very large Petra Ambrosia, round which is entwined a large serpent in a defensive posture. On the right is a sea shell, on the left a palm tree.
No. 6 represents an altar with a burning sacrifice. In front is a serpent with a radiated head, gazing upon the altar.
Besides these medals, there is a Tyrian coin engraved in Bryant's Analysis, plate 7. vol. iii. In this we observe a tree between two Petræ Ambrosiæ. A serpent is twined about the trunk of a tree. At the base of the coin is a sea shell and a wolf, emblems of Tyre.
The serpent-worship of Phœnicia, thus clearly proved, is further illustrated by the very accurate tradition of the rebellion and fall of Satan from heaven, preserved in the legend of OPHIONEUS. OPHIONEUS was a giant who headed an insurrection in heaven, against the gods, and being over-come, was cast down to earth. The name of this celestial rebel is compounded of OPH and ON. It was the name of the SERPENT SOLAR GOD, who united in his mysteries the two ancient superstitions of Zabaism and Ophiolatreia. The celestial origin of Satan is preserved in the termination of his name, ON; while his Paradisiacal incarnation is intimated in the first syllable, OPH. This deity was probably the THABION of whom we spoke above.
So accurately did the legend of Ophioneus coincide with the history of Satan, that CELSUS, the champion of Paganism, adduced it is a proof that the account of Moses was borrowed from the fables of the heathens. An accusation which is triumphantly answered by ORIGEN 1, who charges his opponent with gross ignorance of antiquity, in supposing the fables of his own corrupt mythology to be more ancient than the writings of Moses.
X. ASIA MINOR.--So universal was ophiolatreia in this part of the Roman empire, that "a female figure, holding a serpent in her right hand, and in her left the rostrum of a ship," was the symbol of Asia 2. But the provinces of Asia Minor, which exhibited the strongest and most unquestionable vestiges of serpent-worship, were Phrygia and Troas.
At Hierapolis, in Phrygia, a living serpent of great size was kept and worshipped, when Philip the Apostle converted the inhabitants to Christianity. The tradition is, that he destroyed this animal by his prayers 1; and the people overpowered by the miracle, embraced the Gospel.
As a "genius loci," the serpent entered deeply into the religion of the Phrygians. An example of this may be seen in the fifth Æneid of Virgil, in the sacrifices of Æneas at the tomb of Anchises.
The libations of wine, new milk, and sacred blood, having been poured out, the pious son proceeds with reverential feeling, to address the departed spirit of his father: but the scarcely-commenced requiem is interrupted by a phenomenon, which fills him, at first, with unmixed astonishment, and then overwhelms him with religious awe. A large and beautiful serpent glides from the tumulus--ascends the altars--consumes the offerings--and returns to his abode. The Trojan, upon recovering his self-possession, immediately concludes that this beautiful and mysterious visitant must either be the tutelary deity of the place, or the attendant minister of his father's soul:
Incertus GENIUM ne LOCI, famulum ve parentis. Under either possibility, he hesitates not to offer to the holy being the tribute of adoration. Two sheep, two sows, and two bullocks, attest his piety with their sacrificial blood.
That the Phrygians were Ophites is to be inferred from the device upon the shield of Hector, as represented on the Canino vases 1. The vase No. MCXII. discovers Hector setting out to fight with Achilles. He bears a serpent upon his shield. He is again represented with the same device on another vase.
As a "genius loci," however, the serpent was not confined to Phrygia and Troas. It was, in this character, stamped upon the coins and medals of many towns of Asia Minor. Cyzicum, Pergamus, Marcianopolis, in Mysia; Aboniteichos and Amastris in Paphlagonia; Nice and Nicomedia in Bithynia; Tomos and Dionysopolis in Pontus; and Mindus in Caria, exhibit as their ensign the sacred serpent 2. On the medals of Troas, Nicomedia, Amastris, and Mindus, the serpent is seen encircling a prophetic tripod; on which Spanheim remarks, that "serpents were not only the common symbols of the Pythian worship, but also the domestic prophets of these places."
Other traces of ophiolatreia may be recognised in the names of many places in Asia Minor. As in the names of the ancient cities may be frequently discovered those of the gods to whose worship they were peculiarly devoted: and as the title of the sacred serpent (AB, or PETHEN) is frequently involved in the local designations of Asia Minor, Bryant concluded that the superstition of ophiolatreia must have generally prevailed through this idolatrous region. An island of the Propontis was called Ophiusa: this name was common to many islands and places, and denoted, according to Bryant, their former addiction to the worship of the serpent OPH. In the present case, this hypothesis may seem to be corroborated by the fact, that on the opposite point of the Asiatic continent, there prevailed a tradition of a SERPENT-RACE--OPHIOGENÆ, who were said to be descendents of a father, who was formerly "changed from a serpent into a man 1."
The locus of this legend was called Parium; whence, perhaps, the Greeks may have derived the epithet παρειαι, which was bestowed upon the serpents of the Bacchanalian mysteries. The usual interpretation of this word, from the swelling cheeks of the reptile when irritated, is less probable.
Ælian 1 also speaks of a race of Ophiogenæ in Phrygia, the offspring of a dragon sacred to Diana, and a woman who accidentally entered the grove.
Uniting these fables, we may draw the conclusion, that a colony of Ophites, migrating from Phrygia, settled at Parium. Strabo supposes that they were the Psylli of Africa, so famous for the art of charming serpents: but adduces no reason or authority for the hypothesis.
Besides these inferential evidences of serpent-worship, we have more certain ones in the records of authentic history, which have fixed the temples of Apollo and Æsculapius in various cities of Asia Minor. We may remark, that the serpent invariably entered into the mysteries of the Pythian worship; and that live serpents were always preserved in the sanctuaries of Æsculapius. There is, therefore, strong reason for believing, that wherever there was a temple to either of these deities, ophiolatreia, in some modification, existed. Pythian games 1 were held at Tralles, Miletus, Magnesia, Side, and Perga--all in Asia Minor. Chalcedon, Chrysa, and Patara, were celebrated for the temples which were dedicated in them to Apollo.
The most celebrated temple of Æsculapius in Asia Minor was at Pergamus 2: and all the Pergamean coins, according to Spanheim, bore the figure of a serpent. The Æsculapian worship may be traced in several other places in this country: but to avoid prolixity, I relinquish the search to the more curious and minute investigator. Enough has been said on the local indications of ophiolatreia, to establish the point, that vestiges of the superstition may be found in Asia Minor.
But before we take leave of this interesting region, there are two places which demand, though in different degrees, our attention, as memorable abodes of the sacred serpent--COLCHOS and ABONITEICHOS. The story of the Colchian Dragon, overcome by Jason, is too well known to require, in this place, a particular narration. It relates to the destruction of an OPHITE TEMPLE, and would be better deferred to a subsequent chapter, which will treat exclusively on that part of our subject. The superstition of Aboniteichos, however, comes immediately under our notice, as a remarkable exhibition of the oracular serpent. To the description of a revival of this superstition in the reign of Marcus Aurelius, I will therefore devote the remainder of this section.
From Lucian we learn, that a native of Aboniteichos, Alexander by name, being involved in pecuniary difficulties while left in Greece, determined to practise upon the credulity of his contemporaries in the character of a magician. For this purpose he went with a chosen companion to Pella, in Macedonia; a place remarkable for a singular custom, (which, however, had existed from time immemorial,) that of nourishing tame serpents of prodigious size, to be play-fellows
and companions of their infant children. Having purchased one of these animals, he sailed to Chalcedon; and there, among the ruins of an old temple of Apollo, pretended to dig up two brazen tablets, "which had been deposited by Æsculapius," and which bore this inscription: "Æsculapius, and his father Apollo, intend to come into Pontus, and take up their abode at Aboniteichos."
To Aboniteichos accordingly the impostors went, with their Macedonian serpent: but before they arrived there, the companion of Alexander died. This event, however, by no means disconcerted him. The natives, forewarned, had prepared a temple for his reception, and in this he took up his abode. On an appointed day he proposed to exhibit the god Æsculapius to the people,--having previously enclosed a small snake in an egg-shell, and concealed it in a convenient place. When the multitude had assembled in eager expectation, he approached the spot where the egg-shell had been deposited; and muttering certain "Hebrew and Phœnician words," unintelligible to the people, (who could only catch the words "Apollo," "Æsculapius," occasionally introduced,) he plunged in his hand, and producing the egg-shell, exclaimed that"the god was within."
Breaking the shell, he drew out the young snake, which was unanimously hailed as the expected god. From that day, his reputation as the familiar servant of Æsculapius was established. In a few days afterwards he exhibited the large serpent within his vest, as the same god Æsculapius whom they had seen in his first state. The admiration of the people at the rapid growth of the god confirmed their original impression of his divinity. For this serpent, the impostor contrived a mask with a human face made of linen, and persuaded the votaries that such was the form under which Æsculapius chose to appear. He gave the serpent the name of GLYCON, and declared that he was "the third child of Jupiter, and the light of men." Henceforward he pretended that Glycon was oracular, and by ventriloquism caused him to give responses. Thousands of inquirers flocked from all parts of the Roman Empire to this second Delphi; and, Alexander having carried on the gainful imposture for many years, left a memorial of it upon the coins and medals of Aboniteichos. Engravings of Glycon, as he appeared on these coins, are given by Spanheim, p. 212.
From this curious narrative we may reasonably infer, that had the notion of ophiolatreia been extinct in Paphlagonia, Alexander would not have selected Aboniteichos as the theatre of his fraud. That ophiolatreia did, indeed, once flourish in this city, is evident from its name,--Αβωνου τειχος,--the city of AB-ON, the serpent solar god. It is probable, therefore, that some traces of it remained to the time of Alexander, who skilfully improved the superstitions of the people to his own advantage.
There are proofs also of his acquaintance with the arcana of serpent-worship, in the story itself. The enclosing of the snake in the egg indicates his knowledge of the mythological conceit of the SACRED SERPENT and MUNDANE EGG. The placing of the great serpent in his bosom within his garments, was a revival of the old Sebazian mysteries, described in a preceding chapter. And the very name of GLYCON, involving the title of the solar deity ON, and illustrated by the epithet "the light of men," seems to have an allusion to ophiolatreia, in its connexion with Zabaism.
Putting together these coincidences, we may conclude that the impostor had acquired his knowledge of these ancient mysteries from some person or persons then in existence, capable of teaching him: in other words, that primitive serpent-worship was still to be found in Asia Minor in the days of Marcus Aurelius.
XI. THE ISLANDS OF ASIA MINOR.--From the continent of Asia Minor, we pass naturally to the islands which are scattered along its shores; from Cyprus through the Carpathian and Icarian Seas to the Hellespont. In this passage we follow the tract of one of the most renowned of Ophite leaders, who carried the superstitions of his native country first into the islands which lay near it; and from thence, ultimately, into GREECE. It is conjectured by Bochart, that the first migration of the Hivites, who fled before Joshua, was that of the CADMONITES of Mount Hermon, whose leader was CADMUS, so called from the name of the people whom he commanded. It is not likely that all the actions attributed to the adventurer Cadmus were performed by one person; for it is the genius of fable to bestow upon one person the honours acquired, and the labours undergone by many, who may have issued from the same country. The celebrated Cadmus was, therefore, a fictitious personage, who united in his history the real actions of others, whose separate achievements would not have been sufficiently marvellous for mythology.
Under the guidance of this hero--that is, under the guidance of a Cadmonite from Mount Hermon--colonies of Ophites were settled in Cyprus, Rhodes, Samos, Chios, Icaria, &c. in those islands of the Archipelago which were adjacent to Asia Minor, if not in those which were nearer to Greece.
1. The island of CYPRUS was originally called Ophiusa 1--that is, "the place of serpents:" a name which was very generally given to the settlements of the worshippers of the serpent OPH 2. The tradition was, that formerly these places swarmed with serpents: which, from the insular situation of most of them, is not very probable. At Paphos, in Cyprus, there was a tradition of serpents who had two legs. This, remarks Bryant, related to men, and not to snakes 3.
2. RHODES was also called Ophiusa 4: and, according to Bochart 1, still retains its designation in the Syrian Rhod (a serpent.) At Rhodes there was a tradition of a number of serpents who desolated the country, and destroyed many of its inhabitants. The survivors sent to Delphi, to consult the oracle, and were desired to bring over PHORBAS, who, taking up his residence in the island, soon exterminated the reptiles. He was exalted after death into the constellation OPHIUCHUS 2, which is the same with the OPHIONEUS of Phœnicia. There are some curious coincidences with serpent-worship, in the history of this Phorbas. He was the grandson of Apollo, and father of Iphis, in which word we recognise the root Eph or Oph. APOLLO is the solar deity symbolized by the serpent OPH; and "Phorbas" may be decomposed into PHI-OR-AB; i.e. "The oracle of the solar serpent 3." It appears, also, that Phorbas married HERMYNE--which may mean "a woman of Hermon," where the Hivites resided.
In the legend before us, we trace a confusion of ideas, by which THE ORACLE OF THE SERPENT-GOD, established perhaps at Rhodes by the Hivites of Hermon, is converted into a man, PHORBAS, who delivered the island from serpents. The whole story might have originated in a colony of Hivites from the continent, dispossessing the natives (Ophites also) of their country. The translation of Phorbas into the constellation Ophiuchus, or Ophioneus, corroborates the connexion of this legend with ophiolatreia.
3. In the island of ICARIA was a temple of Diana, called Tauropolium; and a small town named Draconum stood upon a promontory of the same name 1. Tauropolium, according to Bryant, is TOR-OP-EL--the tower of the god Oph. We may infer, therefore, from the connexion of Draconum (the town of the dragon) with Tauropolium, (the temple of the serpent-god,) that the Hivites of Phœnicia settled also in the island of Icaria.
4. A coin of SAMOS represents an erect serpent before a naked man holding a ring in his hand. It is probable, therefore, according to the hypothesis before laid down, that the worship of the serpent once prevailed at Samos.
5. At Chios, there was another settlement of Hivites, as the name of the island, and a tradition preserved in it, would import. "Chios" is derived from "Hhivia," the same root from whence comes "Hivite 1;" the meaning of which word is ascertained to be "a serpent." The Hivites who settled in this island were finally exterminated, according to the probable import of the following legend:--At Chios was a mountain called Pelineus; i.e. according to Bochart, Peli-naas--the stupendous serpent. "Under this mountain," says Ælian 2, "there lived an immense dragon, whose voice was so terrific that no one could ever approach his cave to see him. He was at length destroyed by setting fire to piles of wood placed at the mouth of the cavern." This relates, probably, to the destruction of a vast temple, which the Hivites had erected on that mountain, or at the foot of it. Why this Hivite temple should be called AN IMMENSE DRAGON, will be shown in the chapter which treats of "Ophite temples."
These were the chief settlements of the ophites in Asia Minor; and with these notices we conclude our investigation of SERPENT-WORSHIP IN ASIA.
The Syrian Ophites were the Hivites of Scripture, and the Cadmians of mythology. But the name of "Cadmians" was rather general than particular--it was bestowed indiscriminately upon the authors of this superstition, whether proceeding from Lebanon or Egypt. "They were a two-fold colony which came both from Egypt and Syria 1." The Syrian Cadmians colonized the islands above mentioned. The Egyptian adventurers settled first in Crete, and afterwards in the Cyclades, Peloponnesus, Greece, Samothrace, Macedonia, Illyrium, &c. as we shall hereafter find.
It appears, then, from a review of what has been already ascertained, that THE WORSHIP OF THE SERPENT pervaded Babylonia, Assyria, Mesopotamia, Persia, India, Cachmere, China, Japan, Java, Ceylon, Arabia, Syria, Colchis, and Asia Minor--a tract of country over which (the worship of the sun alone excepted) no other superstition was so uniformly spread. It entered also into the religion of the Scythian tribes, who bore for their banner the sacred dragon 1: and was carried with them, probably, to the river OBI--a river, in whose name is preserved to the present day, a memorial of the sacred serpent OB. It might indeed have been called "the serpent river," from its winding course; but this is not a peculiarity of any river--it is common to all: and the recorded fact that the OSTIACKES, who inhabited the banks of the OBI, among their other idols, worshipped the image of A SERPENT 2, tends strongly to corroborate our hypothesis.
We may observe, also, that Philostratus 2 attributes the same superstitious practice, with the same views, to the natives of Arabia and Hindûstan: viz. that of "eating the heart and liver of serpents, for the purpose of acquiring a knowledge of the thoughts and languages of animals." This notion, perhaps, originated in the traditionary account of the PROPHETIC SERPENT, the memory of whose oracle is so strongly impressed upon the page of antiquity.
IX. SYRIA.--From Arabia we pass into the Land of Canaan, for so many ages the theatre upon which truth and superstition contended for the ascendancy. The country which we include under the general name of SYRIA extends from the Euphrates to the Mediterranean sea, on one side; and from Mount Taurus to Arabia, on the other. It includes, therefore, the whole of Phœnicia and Palestine, the territories of Damascus, and the possessions of Solomon.
The Phœnicians, according to Sanchoniathon, cited by Eusebius 1, were among the earliest of the nations that embraced ophiolatreia; and the author of this idolatry is said to have been TAAUTUS. Sanchoniathon calls him "a God 2," and says, that he first made an image of Cœlus, and afterwards of Saturn; and then invented hieroglyphics 3. He is supposed to be the same as the Hermes Trismegistus of Egypt, where the was called Thoth, and deified. The words of Sanchoniathon are the following: "Taautus consecrated the species of dragons and serpents; and the Phœnicians and Egyptians followed him in this superstition."
Hence we may infer, that Taautus was the first person who introduced into Phœnicia both zabaism and serpent-worship. For such must be the meaning of the expressions that he was "the first who made an image of CŒLUS,"--that is, represented "the heavenly host" by visible symbols, and "consecrated DRAGONS and SERPENTS."
The UNION of these two superstitions, intimated by the attribution of them to the same inventor, proves the origin of the serpent-worship to be co-ordinate with that of the sun, or of the celestial bodies. From which we may argue, that Taautus was the leader of the first colony after the flood which settled in Phœnicia; out of which he may have passed easily into Egypt, if we take the word Phœnicia in its most extended sense, as including the whole land of Canaan. There is then no difficulty in conceiving that the Phœnician TAUT and the Egyptian THOTH were the same person. The intimate connexion of the latter with the serpent-worship of Egypt we shall observe in the sequel.
The prevalence of ophiolatreia in the land of Canaan, is therefore directly shown upon historical testimony: it is proved, collaterally, by the traditions of the country, and the remains of serpent-worship which was occasionally visible in the sacred and classical writings. The name of the sacred serpent, according to Bryant 1, (who has taken great pains to arrive at accuracy in this statement,) was in the ancient language of Canaan, variously pronounced AUB, AB; OUB, OB; OPH, OP; EPH, EV . . . . . all referrible to the original אוב, or אב; which being derived from אב (inflare), was, perhaps, applied to the serpent from his peculiarity of inflation when irritated.
The first oracle mentioned in history was dedicated to the serpent-god, who was known in Canaan by the name of OB, or AUB: hence arose the notion that the oracular response of the priestess of these serpent temples must be always preceded by a mysterious inflation, as if actuated by the internal presence of the divineSpirit. Thus Virgil describes the Pythian priestess--
------------- Ait, "Deus, ecce Deus!" cui talia fanti
------------------------------------------ pectus anhelum,
Et rabie fera corda tument, majorque videri,
Nec mortale sonans: adflata est Numine quando
Jam propiore Dei.
Æneid. vi. 46, &c. The whole of this notion of necessary inflation was taken up by the Greeks, from mistaking the word OB, (the name of the Deity,) for the word OB, that property of inflation, from whence the name was derived: OB signifying both the serpent, and his property of inflation 1.
The first mention of the God OB occurs in the Scriptures. Moses refers to his oracle, when he commands every AUB, AB, or OB, to be put to death:
"A man also, or woman, that hath a familiar spirit, (אוב) shall surely be put to death." (Levit. xx. 27. Deut. xviii. 1.1.)
The word אוב is translated by the Septuagint, ventriloquist,--one that speaks from his belly. This is the Greek notion of inflation, adopted by the Septuagint in accommodation to the received opinions respecting the Pythian priestess. The English version "who hath a familiar spirit," is too indefinite; and the septuagint, "who is a ventriloquist," too paraphrastic, to express the meaning of Moses. We must therefore look for another. In doing so, we may remark, that it was not an unusual custom of the Gentiles for the priest or priestess of any God to take the name of the deity they served. Thus Clemens Alexandrinus calls the priest of Cnuphis in Egypt, SECNUPHIS. This was the priest with whom Plato conversed 1, and his god was the same as the OB of Canaan; that is, the SERPENT-GOD of the country. We read also of OINUPHIS, a priest of Heliopolis, from whom Pythagoras is said to have learned astronomy 2. Heliopolis, "the city of the SUN," was called in Egypt ON, which was a title of the solar deity. OINUPHIS therefore, (or rather ONUPHIS,) was the solar deity ON, symbolized by the sacred serpent OPH. In this case therefore, as in the former, the priest assumed the cognomen of his God. Again, Eudoxus was taught astronomy by another priest of Heliopolis, whose name was CONUPHIS, or C’NUPHIS 1.
For these examples I am indebted to Jablonski, who says that SECNUPHIS means literally SE-ICH-CNUPHIS, "the servant of the god Cnuphis."
In like manner we find that the priestess of DELPHI was called PYTHIA, from her deity PYTHON: and the Druid who was the minister of the British god HU, was called "an ADDER;" because adders were symbolical of the god whom he served, whose chief title was "HU, the DRAGON-RULER of the world 2."
It is a curious coincidence, that as the witch of Endor is called oub, and the African sorceress obi, from the serpent deity OUB; so the old English name of a witch, hag, bears apparent relationship to the word hak, the ancient British name of a species of snake.
These examples I have taken, exclusively, from the worshippers of the SERPENT-GOD in Egypt, Greece, and Britain, among whom the custom seems to have been more prevalent than among the votaries of the other heathen deities. To these we may add the example of the emperor Elagabalus assuming the name of the Syrian god of Emesa, at whose shrine he officiated before he was invested with the Roman purple. We shall find in the sequel, that this deity was identical, or nearly so, with the deity whose worship we are now investigating. The difference being, that OB was simply the serpent-god; whereas ELAGABALUS was the solar deity symbolized by the serpent.
From these parallels we may infer, that the priest or priestess of OB, in Canaan, assumed the appellation of the deity whom they served.
We may therefore render Levit. xx. 27--"A man also, or woman among you, who is an OB, (i.e. a priest or priestess of OB,) 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."
Again, the woman of Endor, to whom Saul applied for an oracle, is called בעלת־אוב; the literal meaning of which is "one that hath OB," which is synonymous with "a priestess of OB."
The serpent OB, thus worshipped in Canaan as oracular, was called, "THE GOOD DÆMON," as we learn from Eusebius, citing Sanchoniathon--"The Phœnicians called this animal (the sacred serpent) AGATHODÆMON: the Egyptians likewise called him CNEPH, and added to him the head of a hawk, because of its activity 1."
The title OB, or AB, was frequently compounded with ON, a name of the SUN, because the serpent was considered symbolical of that deity. This symbolical worship was of very ancient date in Phœnicia, as we learn from Sanchoniathon 2, who tells us, "The son of THABION was the first hierophant of Phœnicia."
Prophets and priests are frequently called in mythology the sons of the God whom they worshipped. The son of Thabion, therefore, was the priest of Thabion. Now Thabion is a compound word, TH’-AB-ION: of which the initial letters "TH’" signify "God." They are an abbreviation of the word "THEUTH," "from which the Greeks formed ΘΕΟΣ, which with that nation was the most general name of the Deity 3." "THABION," therefore implies, THE GOD ABION,"--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 1, 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 comes the word OPHITES, by which the Greek historians designated the worshippers of the serpent. The Greek word Οφις, a serpent, is derived from Oph, the Egyptian name for that reptile 2; the same as Eph. The Hivites who were left "to prove Israel 3," inhabited Mount Lebanon, "from Mount Baalhermon unto the entering in of Hamath." The children of Israel intermarried with them, "and served their gods." These were called BAALIM, which being in the plural number, may mean the god BAAL or BEL, under different forms of worship; of which that of the serpent was one; as we have seen under the article "Ophiolatreia in Babylon."
The extent to which this worship prevailed, may be estimated by the fact of its surviving to the time of Hezekiah, when the Jews "burned incense" to the brazen serpent which had been laid up among the sacred relics, as a memorial of their deliverance from the serpents in the wilderness. Hezekiah "removed the high places, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made; for UNTO THOSE DAYS the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehustan 1,"--i.e. a piece of brass, by way of contempt.
But the worship of the serpent was not so easily suppressed in Canaan. The Jewish polity being broken up, the lurking ophites crept out of their obscurity; and in the second century brought dishonour on the Christian religion, by claiming an affinity of faith with the worshippers of JESUS.
These Christian heretics were exposed by Epiphanius 2, under the name of Οφῖται. Clemens Alexandrinus also mentions them; and Tertullian describes their tenets--"Accesserunt his hæretici etiam 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 potentiam et majestatem, Moyses æreum posuit serpentem, et quicunque in eum aspexerunt, sanitatem consecuti sunt. Ipse, aiunt, præterea, in Evangelio imitatur serpentis ipsius sacram potestatem dicendo, 'et sicut Moyses exaltavit serpentem in deserto, ita exaltari oportet Filium Hominis.' Ipsum introducunt ad benedicenda Eucharistia 1."
A more ingenious perversion of Scripture than the foregoing, may scarcely be found in the annals of heresy.
Epiphanius says, that "the Ophites sprung out of the Nicolaitans and Gnostics, and were so called from the serpent which they worshipped." The Gnostics, he informs us in another place 2, "taught that the ruler of this world was of a dracontic form." "The Ophites," he observes, "attribute all wisdom to the serpent of paradise, and say that he was the author of knowledge to men." "They keep a live serpent in a chest; and at the time of the mysteries entice him out by placing bread before him upon a table. Opening his door he comes out, and having ascended the table, folds himself about the bread. This they call a perfect sacrifice. They not only break and distribute this among the votaries, but whosoever will, may kiss the serpent 1. This the wretched people call THE EUCHARIST. They conclude the mysteries by singing an hymn THROUGH HIM to the supreme Father 2.
The above account of Epiphanius forcibly reminds us of the mysteries of Bacchus, in which serpents were carried in covered baskets; and in which cakes and new bread were given to the votaries. Demosthenes, in one of his most splendid passages of sarcasm, describes his antagonist Æschines under the ludicrous character of a Bacchans, "pressing tight in his hands the Parian serpents, and brandishing them over his head, and shouting 'Euoi, Saboi!' dancing meantime, and crying 'Hyes Attes!' 'Attes Hyes!'" He calls him, contemptuously, "a chief leader" of the mysteries, and chest-bearer, that is, carrying the snake-basket. For which extravagancies he receives his reward in "CAKES and NEW BREAD 1."
In the Bacchanalian Mysteries, also, there was a consecrated cup of wine, handed round after supper, called "the cup of the Agathodæmon:" which was received with much shouting 2. The Christian Ophites, therefore, preserving the memory of their Bacchanalian orgies, would naturally confound the observances of the Lord's Supper with the practices incident to their heathen festival. The hymn with which they concluded their idolatrous ceremonies, addressed through the serpent to the Supreme Father, is a memorial of the hymn sung to Python on every seventh day at Delphi 3.
These opinions of the Gnostic Ophites were blended with the old Magian superstition of Persia by Manes, a celebrated heretic of the third century; who revived ophiolatreia, in his native country, under the name of Christianity. He taught, 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 1."
Traces of ophiolatreia are visible in the neighbourhood of Damascus, where there were two ophite temples, converted, with the usual licence of poets, into "dragons 2."
The whole region of TRACHONITIS is supposed by Bryant to have received its name from the worship of the DRAGON, so common in those parts. The mistake of Τραχων for Δρακων is easy.
The subject of ophite temples is so full of curious information, that I shall reserve what I have gleaned upon it for a separate chapter. We may remark, however, in this place, that there is reason for supposing that the celebrated grove of Daphne, near Antioch, was (at least in part) devoted to the mysteries of the serpent. Its consecration to Apollo, the solar god of antiquity, who united in his rites the worship of the serpent, gives countenance to this opinion; but the corroboration is derived from a remarkable legend preserved in Strabo. It is said that the Macedonian kings of Syria first established the oracles,and planted the grove of Daphne 1; but the legend in question would argue for that secluded and voluptuous sanctuary a much higher antiquity. The Macedonian kings, in all probability, patronized the ancient GROVE-WORSHIP mentioned in Judges iii. 7, in connexion with the service of BAALIM, into which the children of Israel were seduced by the Hivites. The legend of Strabo informs us that the original name of the river Orontes was TYPHON; for there the serpent Typhon being struck by the lightning of Jupiter, in escaping cut the earth with his body as he writhed along; and springs of water issuing from the ground, formed the river, which, after him, was called Typhon 2.
Had ophiolatreia never existed in Daphne, such a legend as this would hardly have been recorded of the river which flowed by it. At Daphne there was a temple of Apollo, and a grove sacred to Diana; and it is a remarkable circumstance, that in almost every place where there was either, some legend of a serpent generally prevailed.
The serpent-worship of Syria is strongly marked in the religion of the people of Tyre. The Phœnicians of Tyre consecrated an image of the serpent, and suspended it in their temples, encircling in its folds the Mundane egg 1, the symbol of the universe. THE SERPENT denoted the Supreme Being, in his character of the vivifying principle. Macrobius informs us, that the Phœnicians worshipped Janus under the figure of a serpent, forming a circle, with his tail in his mouth; typifying the self-existence and eternity of the world 2.
The serpent was deemed particularly sacred to Æsculapius; and in his temples live serpents were kept for the purposes of adoration. There was a grove of Æsculapius near Sidon, on the banks of the Tamyras 3. From which we may infer that here also were kept live serpents, and worshipped.
The emperor Elagabalus was high priest of the god of that name, who had a temple at Emesa. "He imported into Rome small serpents of the Egyptian breed, which were called in that country Agathodæmons:" these he worshipped 1. Hence we may infer that this young emperor had been educated in the mysteries of ophiolatreia; an inference which is strengthened by the decomposition of his name, or rather that of his god.
Elagabal is perhaps EL-OG-OB-EL; that is, "the god OG, the serpent-god 2." This was the deity whose worship was conveyed into western Europe, under the title of OGHAM or OGMIUS, by the Phœnician mariners, and established in Gaul and Ireland, as we shall see in the chapters which treat of serpent-worship in those countries. He was a compound character between Hercules and Mercury, bearing as his symbol the club of the former, surmounted by the caduceus of the latter.
The first mention of this name in history is in the Scriptures, where it appears as the cognomen of the celebrated king of Bashan, overthrown by Joshua. He reigned over the territory of Argob 3, which was afterwards called by the Greeks, Trachonitis. Trachonitis we have already resolved into the "country of the dragon:" and the propriety of this resolution will appear from decomposing the word Argob into its component parts, AUR-OG-OB; of which the first signifies light; the second is the name of the deity; the third that of his symbol, the serpent. Faber thinks that OG is the DELUGE deified; whence is derived OC and OCEANUS. This, I believe is the general opinion. But whoever OG may have been, the word Argob is his title; and this title bears allusion to the solar deity AUR, and the serpent-deity AUB. And "the region of Argob" in his holy land. Upon this hypothesis the king of Bashan (OG) would be hierarch and king of Argob, assuming the name of his tutelar god--
"REX ANIUS, rex idem hominum, PHŒBIQUE sacerdos." Sandford, Dickinson, Vossius, and Gale, concur in identifying "OG, king of Bashan," with the Typhon or Python of mythology 1. I cannot say that the same arguments which weighed with these learned men have brought me to the same conclusion; but this much cannot, I think, be denied, that there is a strong connexion between THE WORSHIP OF OG, and OPHIOLATREIA. Beyond this, I would not desire to press the argument--but up to this point I would urge it. For even upon the supposition of OG being the deluge, the serpent would be his emblem; being in this character considered in all mythology--Asiatic, Egyptian, or Scandinavian. Elagabalus, therefore, was probably the same at Emesa, as OG, the king of Bashan, in Argob--the royal priest of the SERPENT SOLAR GOD.
But the serpent-worship of Syria, has left stronger records of its original prevalence than verbal coincidences. The coins of the Tyrians, as engraved in Maurice's Indian Antiquities, vol. 6, bear testimony to the existence and prevalence of this superstition in Phœnicia, in characters which it is impossible to mistake. It is true that these medals are of comparatively recent date, the oldest of them being posterior to Alexander the Great: but still they recognise the local superstition of that a era; and we know that the local religions of the Asiatics were rarely susceptible of innovation. Besides, we have already possessed ourselves of data which identify ophiolatreia as indigenous in the land of Canaan.
The following is a description of these interesting medals.
No. 1 represents a TREE between two rude stones, which are erect: round the trunk of the tree is coiled a SERPENT. At the lower part of the medal, in one corner, is an altar, denoting that the medal is descriptive of religious rites. The two rude stones are the Petræ Ambrosiæ, so well known to antiquaries, and of the kind of which the Celtic temples were composed. The two stones here are intended, doubtless, as a representation of an Ophite temple.
No. 2 represents, a burning altar. Two serpents are rising from the two front angles of the base. On the left, is the celebrated caduceus, without wings.
No. 3 exhibits a naked man standing between two serpents, which are erect upon one coil, and turning from him. This is a medal of Berytus--the rest are Tyrian.
No. 4 represents the Tyrian Hercules (Ogmius) contending with a serpent. The man has a large stone in his right hand, and is in the act of throwing it. The serpent is erect upon one coil. Behind the man is a sea shell, denoting Tyre.
No. 5 presents us with a very large Petra Ambrosia, round which is entwined a large serpent in a defensive posture. On the right is a sea shell, on the left a palm tree.
No. 6 represents an altar with a burning sacrifice. In front is a serpent with a radiated head, gazing upon the altar.
Besides these medals, there is a Tyrian coin engraved in Bryant's Analysis, plate 7. vol. iii. In this we observe a tree between two Petræ Ambrosiæ. A serpent is twined about the trunk of a tree. At the base of the coin is a sea shell and a wolf, emblems of Tyre.
The serpent-worship of Phœnicia, thus clearly proved, is further illustrated by the very accurate tradition of the rebellion and fall of Satan from heaven, preserved in the legend of OPHIONEUS. OPHIONEUS was a giant who headed an insurrection in heaven, against the gods, and being over-come, was cast down to earth. The name of this celestial rebel is compounded of OPH and ON. It was the name of the SERPENT SOLAR GOD, who united in his mysteries the two ancient superstitions of Zabaism and Ophiolatreia. The celestial origin of Satan is preserved in the termination of his name, ON; while his Paradisiacal incarnation is intimated in the first syllable, OPH. This deity was probably the THABION of whom we spoke above.
So accurately did the legend of Ophioneus coincide with the history of Satan, that CELSUS, the champion of Paganism, adduced it is a proof that the account of Moses was borrowed from the fables of the heathens. An accusation which is triumphantly answered by ORIGEN 1, who charges his opponent with gross ignorance of antiquity, in supposing the fables of his own corrupt mythology to be more ancient than the writings of Moses.
X. ASIA MINOR.--So universal was ophiolatreia in this part of the Roman empire, that "a female figure, holding a serpent in her right hand, and in her left the rostrum of a ship," was the symbol of Asia 2. But the provinces of Asia Minor, which exhibited the strongest and most unquestionable vestiges of serpent-worship, were Phrygia and Troas.
At Hierapolis, in Phrygia, a living serpent of great size was kept and worshipped, when Philip the Apostle converted the inhabitants to Christianity. The tradition is, that he destroyed this animal by his prayers 1; and the people overpowered by the miracle, embraced the Gospel.
As a "genius loci," the serpent entered deeply into the religion of the Phrygians. An example of this may be seen in the fifth Æneid of Virgil, in the sacrifices of Æneas at the tomb of Anchises.
The libations of wine, new milk, and sacred blood, having been poured out, the pious son proceeds with reverential feeling, to address the departed spirit of his father: but the scarcely-commenced requiem is interrupted by a phenomenon, which fills him, at first, with unmixed astonishment, and then overwhelms him with religious awe. A large and beautiful serpent glides from the tumulus--ascends the altars--consumes the offerings--and returns to his abode. The Trojan, upon recovering his self-possession, immediately concludes that this beautiful and mysterious visitant must either be the tutelary deity of the place, or the attendant minister of his father's soul:
Incertus GENIUM ne LOCI, famulum ve parentis. Under either possibility, he hesitates not to offer to the holy being the tribute of adoration. Two sheep, two sows, and two bullocks, attest his piety with their sacrificial blood.
That the Phrygians were Ophites is to be inferred from the device upon the shield of Hector, as represented on the Canino vases 1. The vase No. MCXII. discovers Hector setting out to fight with Achilles. He bears a serpent upon his shield. He is again represented with the same device on another vase.
As a "genius loci," however, the serpent was not confined to Phrygia and Troas. It was, in this character, stamped upon the coins and medals of many towns of Asia Minor. Cyzicum, Pergamus, Marcianopolis, in Mysia; Aboniteichos and Amastris in Paphlagonia; Nice and Nicomedia in Bithynia; Tomos and Dionysopolis in Pontus; and Mindus in Caria, exhibit as their ensign the sacred serpent 2. On the medals of Troas, Nicomedia, Amastris, and Mindus, the serpent is seen encircling a prophetic tripod; on which Spanheim remarks, that "serpents were not only the common symbols of the Pythian worship, but also the domestic prophets of these places."
Other traces of ophiolatreia may be recognised in the names of many places in Asia Minor. As in the names of the ancient cities may be frequently discovered those of the gods to whose worship they were peculiarly devoted: and as the title of the sacred serpent (AB, or PETHEN) is frequently involved in the local designations of Asia Minor, Bryant concluded that the superstition of ophiolatreia must have generally prevailed through this idolatrous region. An island of the Propontis was called Ophiusa: this name was common to many islands and places, and denoted, according to Bryant, their former addiction to the worship of the serpent OPH. In the present case, this hypothesis may seem to be corroborated by the fact, that on the opposite point of the Asiatic continent, there prevailed a tradition of a SERPENT-RACE--OPHIOGENÆ, who were said to be descendents of a father, who was formerly "changed from a serpent into a man 1."
The locus of this legend was called Parium; whence, perhaps, the Greeks may have derived the epithet παρειαι, which was bestowed upon the serpents of the Bacchanalian mysteries. The usual interpretation of this word, from the swelling cheeks of the reptile when irritated, is less probable.
Ælian 1 also speaks of a race of Ophiogenæ in Phrygia, the offspring of a dragon sacred to Diana, and a woman who accidentally entered the grove.
Uniting these fables, we may draw the conclusion, that a colony of Ophites, migrating from Phrygia, settled at Parium. Strabo supposes that they were the Psylli of Africa, so famous for the art of charming serpents: but adduces no reason or authority for the hypothesis.
Besides these inferential evidences of serpent-worship, we have more certain ones in the records of authentic history, which have fixed the temples of Apollo and Æsculapius in various cities of Asia Minor. We may remark, that the serpent invariably entered into the mysteries of the Pythian worship; and that live serpents were always preserved in the sanctuaries of Æsculapius. There is, therefore, strong reason for believing, that wherever there was a temple to either of these deities, ophiolatreia, in some modification, existed. Pythian games 1 were held at Tralles, Miletus, Magnesia, Side, and Perga--all in Asia Minor. Chalcedon, Chrysa, and Patara, were celebrated for the temples which were dedicated in them to Apollo.
The most celebrated temple of Æsculapius in Asia Minor was at Pergamus 2: and all the Pergamean coins, according to Spanheim, bore the figure of a serpent. The Æsculapian worship may be traced in several other places in this country: but to avoid prolixity, I relinquish the search to the more curious and minute investigator. Enough has been said on the local indications of ophiolatreia, to establish the point, that vestiges of the superstition may be found in Asia Minor.
But before we take leave of this interesting region, there are two places which demand, though in different degrees, our attention, as memorable abodes of the sacred serpent--COLCHOS and ABONITEICHOS. The story of the Colchian Dragon, overcome by Jason, is too well known to require, in this place, a particular narration. It relates to the destruction of an OPHITE TEMPLE, and would be better deferred to a subsequent chapter, which will treat exclusively on that part of our subject. The superstition of Aboniteichos, however, comes immediately under our notice, as a remarkable exhibition of the oracular serpent. To the description of a revival of this superstition in the reign of Marcus Aurelius, I will therefore devote the remainder of this section.
From Lucian we learn, that a native of Aboniteichos, Alexander by name, being involved in pecuniary difficulties while left in Greece, determined to practise upon the credulity of his contemporaries in the character of a magician. For this purpose he went with a chosen companion to Pella, in Macedonia; a place remarkable for a singular custom, (which, however, had existed from time immemorial,) that of nourishing tame serpents of prodigious size, to be play-fellows
and companions of their infant children. Having purchased one of these animals, he sailed to Chalcedon; and there, among the ruins of an old temple of Apollo, pretended to dig up two brazen tablets, "which had been deposited by Æsculapius," and which bore this inscription: "Æsculapius, and his father Apollo, intend to come into Pontus, and take up their abode at Aboniteichos."
To Aboniteichos accordingly the impostors went, with their Macedonian serpent: but before they arrived there, the companion of Alexander died. This event, however, by no means disconcerted him. The natives, forewarned, had prepared a temple for his reception, and in this he took up his abode. On an appointed day he proposed to exhibit the god Æsculapius to the people,--having previously enclosed a small snake in an egg-shell, and concealed it in a convenient place. When the multitude had assembled in eager expectation, he approached the spot where the egg-shell had been deposited; and muttering certain "Hebrew and Phœnician words," unintelligible to the people, (who could only catch the words "Apollo," "Æsculapius," occasionally introduced,) he plunged in his hand, and producing the egg-shell, exclaimed that"the god was within."
Breaking the shell, he drew out the young snake, which was unanimously hailed as the expected god. From that day, his reputation as the familiar servant of Æsculapius was established. In a few days afterwards he exhibited the large serpent within his vest, as the same god Æsculapius whom they had seen in his first state. The admiration of the people at the rapid growth of the god confirmed their original impression of his divinity. For this serpent, the impostor contrived a mask with a human face made of linen, and persuaded the votaries that such was the form under which Æsculapius chose to appear. He gave the serpent the name of GLYCON, and declared that he was "the third child of Jupiter, and the light of men." Henceforward he pretended that Glycon was oracular, and by ventriloquism caused him to give responses. Thousands of inquirers flocked from all parts of the Roman Empire to this second Delphi; and, Alexander having carried on the gainful imposture for many years, left a memorial of it upon the coins and medals of Aboniteichos. Engravings of Glycon, as he appeared on these coins, are given by Spanheim, p. 212.
From this curious narrative we may reasonably infer, that had the notion of ophiolatreia been extinct in Paphlagonia, Alexander would not have selected Aboniteichos as the theatre of his fraud. That ophiolatreia did, indeed, once flourish in this city, is evident from its name,--Αβωνου τειχος,--the city of AB-ON, the serpent solar god. It is probable, therefore, that some traces of it remained to the time of Alexander, who skilfully improved the superstitions of the people to his own advantage.
There are proofs also of his acquaintance with the arcana of serpent-worship, in the story itself. The enclosing of the snake in the egg indicates his knowledge of the mythological conceit of the SACRED SERPENT and MUNDANE EGG. The placing of the great serpent in his bosom within his garments, was a revival of the old Sebazian mysteries, described in a preceding chapter. And the very name of GLYCON, involving the title of the solar deity ON, and illustrated by the epithet "the light of men," seems to have an allusion to ophiolatreia, in its connexion with Zabaism.
Putting together these coincidences, we may conclude that the impostor had acquired his knowledge of these ancient mysteries from some person or persons then in existence, capable of teaching him: in other words, that primitive serpent-worship was still to be found in Asia Minor in the days of Marcus Aurelius.
XI. THE ISLANDS OF ASIA MINOR.--From the continent of Asia Minor, we pass naturally to the islands which are scattered along its shores; from Cyprus through the Carpathian and Icarian Seas to the Hellespont. In this passage we follow the tract of one of the most renowned of Ophite leaders, who carried the superstitions of his native country first into the islands which lay near it; and from thence, ultimately, into GREECE. It is conjectured by Bochart, that the first migration of the Hivites, who fled before Joshua, was that of the CADMONITES of Mount Hermon, whose leader was CADMUS, so called from the name of the people whom he commanded. It is not likely that all the actions attributed to the adventurer Cadmus were performed by one person; for it is the genius of fable to bestow upon one person the honours acquired, and the labours undergone by many, who may have issued from the same country. The celebrated Cadmus was, therefore, a fictitious personage, who united in his history the real actions of others, whose separate achievements would not have been sufficiently marvellous for mythology.
Under the guidance of this hero--that is, under the guidance of a Cadmonite from Mount Hermon--colonies of Ophites were settled in Cyprus, Rhodes, Samos, Chios, Icaria, &c. in those islands of the Archipelago which were adjacent to Asia Minor, if not in those which were nearer to Greece.
1. The island of CYPRUS was originally called Ophiusa 1--that is, "the place of serpents:" a name which was very generally given to the settlements of the worshippers of the serpent OPH 2. The tradition was, that formerly these places swarmed with serpents: which, from the insular situation of most of them, is not very probable. At Paphos, in Cyprus, there was a tradition of serpents who had two legs. This, remarks Bryant, related to men, and not to snakes 3.
2. RHODES was also called Ophiusa 4: and, according to Bochart 1, still retains its designation in the Syrian Rhod (a serpent.) At Rhodes there was a tradition of a number of serpents who desolated the country, and destroyed many of its inhabitants. The survivors sent to Delphi, to consult the oracle, and were desired to bring over PHORBAS, who, taking up his residence in the island, soon exterminated the reptiles. He was exalted after death into the constellation OPHIUCHUS 2, which is the same with the OPHIONEUS of Phœnicia. There are some curious coincidences with serpent-worship, in the history of this Phorbas. He was the grandson of Apollo, and father of Iphis, in which word we recognise the root Eph or Oph. APOLLO is the solar deity symbolized by the serpent OPH; and "Phorbas" may be decomposed into PHI-OR-AB; i.e. "The oracle of the solar serpent 3." It appears, also, that Phorbas married HERMYNE--which may mean "a woman of Hermon," where the Hivites resided.
In the legend before us, we trace a confusion of ideas, by which THE ORACLE OF THE SERPENT-GOD, established perhaps at Rhodes by the Hivites of Hermon, is converted into a man, PHORBAS, who delivered the island from serpents. The whole story might have originated in a colony of Hivites from the continent, dispossessing the natives (Ophites also) of their country. The translation of Phorbas into the constellation Ophiuchus, or Ophioneus, corroborates the connexion of this legend with ophiolatreia.
3. In the island of ICARIA was a temple of Diana, called Tauropolium; and a small town named Draconum stood upon a promontory of the same name 1. Tauropolium, according to Bryant, is TOR-OP-EL--the tower of the god Oph. We may infer, therefore, from the connexion of Draconum (the town of the dragon) with Tauropolium, (the temple of the serpent-god,) that the Hivites of Phœnicia settled also in the island of Icaria.
4. A coin of SAMOS represents an erect serpent before a naked man holding a ring in his hand. It is probable, therefore, according to the hypothesis before laid down, that the worship of the serpent once prevailed at Samos.
5. At Chios, there was another settlement of Hivites, as the name of the island, and a tradition preserved in it, would import. "Chios" is derived from "Hhivia," the same root from whence comes "Hivite 1;" the meaning of which word is ascertained to be "a serpent." The Hivites who settled in this island were finally exterminated, according to the probable import of the following legend:--At Chios was a mountain called Pelineus; i.e. according to Bochart, Peli-naas--the stupendous serpent. "Under this mountain," says Ælian 2, "there lived an immense dragon, whose voice was so terrific that no one could ever approach his cave to see him. He was at length destroyed by setting fire to piles of wood placed at the mouth of the cavern." This relates, probably, to the destruction of a vast temple, which the Hivites had erected on that mountain, or at the foot of it. Why this Hivite temple should be called AN IMMENSE DRAGON, will be shown in the chapter which treats of "Ophite temples."
These were the chief settlements of the ophites in Asia Minor; and with these notices we conclude our investigation of SERPENT-WORSHIP IN ASIA.
The Syrian Ophites were the Hivites of Scripture, and the Cadmians of mythology. But the name of "Cadmians" was rather general than particular--it was bestowed indiscriminately upon the authors of this superstition, whether proceeding from Lebanon or Egypt. "They were a two-fold colony which came both from Egypt and Syria 1." The Syrian Cadmians colonized the islands above mentioned. The Egyptian adventurers settled first in Crete, and afterwards in the Cyclades, Peloponnesus, Greece, Samothrace, Macedonia, Illyrium, &c. as we shall hereafter find.
It appears, then, from a review of what has been already ascertained, that THE WORSHIP OF THE SERPENT pervaded Babylonia, Assyria, Mesopotamia, Persia, India, Cachmere, China, Japan, Java, Ceylon, Arabia, Syria, Colchis, and Asia Minor--a tract of country over which (the worship of the sun alone excepted) no other superstition was so uniformly spread. It entered also into the religion of the Scythian tribes, who bore for their banner the sacred dragon 1: and was carried with them, probably, to the river OBI--a river, in whose name is preserved to the present day, a memorial of the sacred serpent OB. It might indeed have been called "the serpent river," from its winding course; but this is not a peculiarity of any river--it is common to all: and the recorded fact that the OSTIACKES, who inhabited the banks of the OBI, among their other idols, worshipped the image of A SERPENT 2, tends strongly to corroborate our hypothesis.
Footnotes
39:1 Analysis of Anc. Myth. ii. 458.
39:2 Macrobius, Saturnal. lib. i. c. 20.
40:1 The universality of serpent-worship is alluded to by Lucan in these memorable lines:
"Vos quoque, qui cunctis innoxia NUMINA terris
Serpitis, aurato nitidi fulgore, DRACONES."
Phars. lib. ix. 727. Draco is the general term to signify all large serpents.
42:1 Bel and the Dragon, v. 28.
43:1 Diod. Sic. lib. ii. s. 70.
43:2 Kircher. Œdip. Ægyptiac. i. 262.
43:3 See "Serpent-worship in Syria."
43:4 Clemens Alexandrinus writes ΒΕΛΙΑΡ in the text. 2 Con vi. 15. There are several MSS. of this epistle, in which βελιαρ is found instead of βελιαλ--such as those of Lincoln, Magdalen, and New Colleges, in Oxford, and Emmanuel College in Cambridge.--Allwood. Lit. Antiq. of Greece, 244.
BELIAR appears to be a compound of BEL and AUR, the p. 44 solar deity, from אור, light. BELIAL has a similar signification, being compounded of BEL and AL, deus. "Iaul," in the Breton language, is the name of the solar deity.
44:1 Herod. ii. 74.
44:2 Herod. viii. 41.
45:1 Aristarchus, p. 11.
45:2 Rev. ix. 11.
45:3 Rev. xx. 1, 2.
45:4 Koch. de Cultu Serpentum, s. 7. p. 30.
46:1 Vossius de Idol. lib. iv. c. 54, citing Codinus.
46:2 Salmasius Hist. Aug. Script. 96.
46:3 Koch. ut supra.--Suidas.
46:4 Stukely. Abury. 56.
46:5 Koch.
47:1 Vopiscus Hist. Aug. Script. 218.
48:1 Præp. Evang. i. 42.
48:2 Faber, Hor. Mos. l. 72.
48:3 Porta 47. Apud Hyde. Rel. Vet. Pers. 478.
49:1 This creed is inculcated in the Ardivaraf Nameh, a work on the ancient religion of Persia.
49:2 Maurice Ind. Ant. iii. 199.
49:3 Arnobius, lib. v. p. 171. Jul. Firm. p. 23.
50:1 Mandelsoe, Travels, chap. i.
50:2 Bryant. Anal. i. 276; plate in vol. ii. 406.
50:3 Ibid. ii. 407.
50:4 Ibid. plate 406.
53:1 Seld. on Arund. Marbles, 133, cited by Stukely, Abury, 56.
53:2 Œdip. Ægyp. vol. iii. p. 23.
53:3 For an account of this temple, see the Chapter on Ophite Temples.
54:1 Stukely, Abury, 56.
56:1 Kircher, Pamph. Obel. 399.
56:2 Ibid. 380.
56:3 Dissert. on the Cabiri, 1. 316.
58:1 Psalm cv.
58:2 Gen. xli.
59:1 See his conversation with God in Horeb, Exod. iii. 13.
59:2 Deut. vi. 4.
60:1 This is one of numerous similar anecdotes recorded of the Hindûs by different writers.
61:1 Purch. Pilg. part i. p. 565.
62:1 Maurice, Ind. Ant. ii. 192.
62:2 Ibid. iii. 203.
62:3 Ibid. iii. 119.
63:1 Francklin on the tenets of the Jeynes and Boodhists.
63:2 Moor. Hindû Pantheon.
63:3 Faber, Pug. Idol. i. 456.
63:4 Asiat. Res. i. 150.
63:5 Faber. P. I. i. 451.
63:6 Faber. P. I. i. 452.
63:7 Ibid. 453.
64:1 Moor. Hind. Panth. plates 17, 18, 20.
64:2 Ibid. pl. 47.
64:3 Ibid. pl. 27.
64:4 Ibid. p. 22.
65:1 Maurice, Hist. of Hindostan, i. 343.
65:2 Asiat. Res. viii. 65.
66:1 Maurice, Hist. of Hindostan, v. 343.
67:1 Quintus Curtius, lib. viii. c. 12.
67:2 For the above valuable facts, I am indebted to the elegant work of Col. Tod, on the Antiquities and Annals of Rajahstan.
68:1 Maur. Hist. Hind. i. 291.
68:2 Embassy to Tibet.
68:3 Account of Ceylon, p. 83.
69:1 Stukeley, Abury, 56.
69:2 Maur. Hist. Hind. i. 210.
69:3 Lecompte, China, 94.
70:1 Kœmpfer, Japan, 246.
70:2 A somewhat similar story is told by Pindar, Olymp. 6, of Iamus, the son of Apollo and Evadne: though in this case the two serpents, sent by the gods, fed the foundling with wild honey.
----δύο δὲ γλαυκῶπες αὐτὸν
Δαιμόνων βουλαῖσιν ἐ-
θρέψαντο δράκοντες. 70:3 Cambry Monumens Celtiques. 163.
71:1 Vide infra. "Serpent-worship in Greece and Egypt."
72:1 Jablonski, Panth. Æg. lib. i. c. 4.
72:2 Purchas. Pilg. part iii. p. 395.
72:3 "Tour through the Upper Provinces," p. 166.
73:1 Maur. Ind. Ant. ii. 192.
73:2 Maur. Ind. Ant. 194, 195.
73:3 Rev. xii. 7.
73:4 A similar notion prevailed in the Mythology of Scandinavia. See infra, c. 3.
74:1 Kœmpfer, Japan, 124.
74:2 Ibid. 128.
74:3 Ibid. 191.
76:1 Java, i. 9, 10. 15. 17.
76:2 Ibid. 47.
76:3 Ibid. 21, 22.
77:1 Delph. Phœn. c. 2. p. 10.
77:2 De Vitâ Apollonii, lib. i. c. 14, and lib. iii. c. 3.
78:1 Præp. Evang. 40.
78:2 Ibid. 39.
78:3 Στοιχείων. See Warburton Div. Leg. of Moses, iii. 213.
80:1 Ant. Myth. i, 58 et passim.
81:1 OB is the same as AB, with a prolonged pronunciation.
82:1 Jablonski Pantheon. Ægypt. lib. i. c. 4. s. 11.
82:2 Plutarch. De Iside et Osiride 632. Edit. Steph.
83:1 Clem. Alex. Strom. 1. p. 303.
83:2 Davies. Myth. of Druids, 122.
85:1 Præp. Evang. lib. i. 41
85:2 Ibid .iv. 39.
85:3 Bryant. Anal. l. 13.
86:1 Geog. Sacr.
86:2 Bryant. Anal. ii. 199.
86:3 Judges iii, 3.
87:1 2 Kings xviii. 4.
87:2 Hæres. xxxvii. p. 267.
88:1 De Præscript. Hæret. c. xlvii. p. 221. Cited by Bryant, Anal. ii. 218.
88:2 P. 91
89:1 It was a common practice of the Heathen to kiss their idols.
89:2 Epiph. lib. i. tom. 3. p. 268, &c.
90:1 Demosth. pro Corona, s. 79.
90:2 Nicola: de ritu Bacch. apud Gronov. vii. 186.
90:3 Prolegomena to the Pythia, of Pindar, cited by Bryant. Anal. ii. 147.
91:1 Faber. Pag. Idol. ii. 433. citing Asiat. Res. vol. x.
91:2 Bryant, Anal. ii. 142.
92:1 Gibbon, Dec. and Fall of Rom. Emp. iv. 113.
92:2 Strabo, lib. xvi. 750.
93:1 Plate in Maurice and Bryant.
93:2 Lib. i. c. 9.
93:3 Strabo, 756.
94:1 Lampridius, cited by Jablonski Panth. Ægypt. 89.
94:2 OBEL is probably the same as BEL--the great god of the Babylonians.
94:3 Deut. iii. 4.
95:1 See Gale. Court of Gentiles, v. L b. ii. 58.
99:1 Cited by Stillingfleet. Orig. Sac, book iii. c. 3. s. 18.
99:2 Beger de Num. Creten. Serpentif. 8.
100:1 Nelson, Fasts and Festivals.
101:1 Archæol. vol. xxiii.
101:2 See Spanheim, 212, &c.
102:1 Strabo, lib. 13.
103:1 De Animal. lib. xii. c. 39.
104:1 Gronov. vii. 869, on the Arundelian Marbles and Stone found at Megara.
104:2 It is remarkable that this city is particularly stigmatized in Scripture as "Satan's seat,"---"where Satan dwelleth."-Rev. ii. 13.
110:1 Pliny.
110:2 Bryant, Anal. ii. 207.
110:3 Anal. ii. 209.
110:4 Strabo, 653.
111:1 Geog. Sacr. Part 2. lib. i. c. 7.
111:2 Geog. Sacr. Part 2. lib. i. c. 7. citing Diod. and Hygin.
111:3 Faber derives Phorbas from Ph’-or-ob-as, "the burning solar serpent." (Cabiri. i. 351.)
112:1 Strabo, 659.
113:1 Bochart. Geog. Sac. Part. 2. lib. i. c. 9.
113:2 Cited by Bochart, ut supra.
114:1 Bryant, Anal. ii. 460.
115:1 Koch de Cultu Serpentum, p. 30; also Suidas.
115:2 New Memoirs of Literature. Anno 1725, vol. i. 421.
39:1 Analysis of Anc. Myth. ii. 458.
39:2 Macrobius, Saturnal. lib. i. c. 20.
40:1 The universality of serpent-worship is alluded to by Lucan in these memorable lines:
"Vos quoque, qui cunctis innoxia NUMINA terris
Serpitis, aurato nitidi fulgore, DRACONES."
Phars. lib. ix. 727. Draco is the general term to signify all large serpents.
42:1 Bel and the Dragon, v. 28.
43:1 Diod. Sic. lib. ii. s. 70.
43:2 Kircher. Œdip. Ægyptiac. i. 262.
43:3 See "Serpent-worship in Syria."
43:4 Clemens Alexandrinus writes ΒΕΛΙΑΡ in the text. 2 Con vi. 15. There are several MSS. of this epistle, in which βελιαρ is found instead of βελιαλ--such as those of Lincoln, Magdalen, and New Colleges, in Oxford, and Emmanuel College in Cambridge.--Allwood. Lit. Antiq. of Greece, 244.
BELIAR appears to be a compound of BEL and AUR, the p. 44 solar deity, from אור, light. BELIAL has a similar signification, being compounded of BEL and AL, deus. "Iaul," in the Breton language, is the name of the solar deity.
44:1 Herod. ii. 74.
44:2 Herod. viii. 41.
45:1 Aristarchus, p. 11.
45:2 Rev. ix. 11.
45:3 Rev. xx. 1, 2.
45:4 Koch. de Cultu Serpentum, s. 7. p. 30.
46:1 Vossius de Idol. lib. iv. c. 54, citing Codinus.
46:2 Salmasius Hist. Aug. Script. 96.
46:3 Koch. ut supra.--Suidas.
46:4 Stukely. Abury. 56.
46:5 Koch.
47:1 Vopiscus Hist. Aug. Script. 218.
48:1 Præp. Evang. i. 42.
48:2 Faber, Hor. Mos. l. 72.
48:3 Porta 47. Apud Hyde. Rel. Vet. Pers. 478.
49:1 This creed is inculcated in the Ardivaraf Nameh, a work on the ancient religion of Persia.
49:2 Maurice Ind. Ant. iii. 199.
49:3 Arnobius, lib. v. p. 171. Jul. Firm. p. 23.
50:1 Mandelsoe, Travels, chap. i.
50:2 Bryant. Anal. i. 276; plate in vol. ii. 406.
50:3 Ibid. ii. 407.
50:4 Ibid. plate 406.
53:1 Seld. on Arund. Marbles, 133, cited by Stukely, Abury, 56.
53:2 Œdip. Ægyp. vol. iii. p. 23.
53:3 For an account of this temple, see the Chapter on Ophite Temples.
54:1 Stukely, Abury, 56.
56:1 Kircher, Pamph. Obel. 399.
56:2 Ibid. 380.
56:3 Dissert. on the Cabiri, 1. 316.
58:1 Psalm cv.
58:2 Gen. xli.
59:1 See his conversation with God in Horeb, Exod. iii. 13.
59:2 Deut. vi. 4.
60:1 This is one of numerous similar anecdotes recorded of the Hindûs by different writers.
61:1 Purch. Pilg. part i. p. 565.
62:1 Maurice, Ind. Ant. ii. 192.
62:2 Ibid. iii. 203.
62:3 Ibid. iii. 119.
63:1 Francklin on the tenets of the Jeynes and Boodhists.
63:2 Moor. Hindû Pantheon.
63:3 Faber, Pug. Idol. i. 456.
63:4 Asiat. Res. i. 150.
63:5 Faber. P. I. i. 451.
63:6 Faber. P. I. i. 452.
63:7 Ibid. 453.
64:1 Moor. Hind. Panth. plates 17, 18, 20.
64:2 Ibid. pl. 47.
64:3 Ibid. pl. 27.
64:4 Ibid. p. 22.
65:1 Maurice, Hist. of Hindostan, i. 343.
65:2 Asiat. Res. viii. 65.
66:1 Maurice, Hist. of Hindostan, v. 343.
67:1 Quintus Curtius, lib. viii. c. 12.
67:2 For the above valuable facts, I am indebted to the elegant work of Col. Tod, on the Antiquities and Annals of Rajahstan.
68:1 Maur. Hist. Hind. i. 291.
68:2 Embassy to Tibet.
68:3 Account of Ceylon, p. 83.
69:1 Stukeley, Abury, 56.
69:2 Maur. Hist. Hind. i. 210.
69:3 Lecompte, China, 94.
70:1 Kœmpfer, Japan, 246.
70:2 A somewhat similar story is told by Pindar, Olymp. 6, of Iamus, the son of Apollo and Evadne: though in this case the two serpents, sent by the gods, fed the foundling with wild honey.
----δύο δὲ γλαυκῶπες αὐτὸν
Δαιμόνων βουλαῖσιν ἐ-
θρέψαντο δράκοντες. 70:3 Cambry Monumens Celtiques. 163.
71:1 Vide infra. "Serpent-worship in Greece and Egypt."
72:1 Jablonski, Panth. Æg. lib. i. c. 4.
72:2 Purchas. Pilg. part iii. p. 395.
72:3 "Tour through the Upper Provinces," p. 166.
73:1 Maur. Ind. Ant. ii. 192.
73:2 Maur. Ind. Ant. 194, 195.
73:3 Rev. xii. 7.
73:4 A similar notion prevailed in the Mythology of Scandinavia. See infra, c. 3.
74:1 Kœmpfer, Japan, 124.
74:2 Ibid. 128.
74:3 Ibid. 191.
76:1 Java, i. 9, 10. 15. 17.
76:2 Ibid. 47.
76:3 Ibid. 21, 22.
77:1 Delph. Phœn. c. 2. p. 10.
77:2 De Vitâ Apollonii, lib. i. c. 14, and lib. iii. c. 3.
78:1 Præp. Evang. 40.
78:2 Ibid. 39.
78:3 Στοιχείων. See Warburton Div. Leg. of Moses, iii. 213.
80:1 Ant. Myth. i, 58 et passim.
81:1 OB is the same as AB, with a prolonged pronunciation.
82:1 Jablonski Pantheon. Ægypt. lib. i. c. 4. s. 11.
82:2 Plutarch. De Iside et Osiride 632. Edit. Steph.
83:1 Clem. Alex. Strom. 1. p. 303.
83:2 Davies. Myth. of Druids, 122.
85:1 Præp. Evang. lib. i. 41
85:2 Ibid .iv. 39.
85:3 Bryant. Anal. l. 13.
86:1 Geog. Sacr.
86:2 Bryant. Anal. ii. 199.
86:3 Judges iii, 3.
87:1 2 Kings xviii. 4.
87:2 Hæres. xxxvii. p. 267.
88:1 De Præscript. Hæret. c. xlvii. p. 221. Cited by Bryant, Anal. ii. 218.
88:2 P. 91
89:1 It was a common practice of the Heathen to kiss their idols.
89:2 Epiph. lib. i. tom. 3. p. 268, &c.
90:1 Demosth. pro Corona, s. 79.
90:2 Nicola: de ritu Bacch. apud Gronov. vii. 186.
90:3 Prolegomena to the Pythia, of Pindar, cited by Bryant. Anal. ii. 147.
91:1 Faber. Pag. Idol. ii. 433. citing Asiat. Res. vol. x.
91:2 Bryant, Anal. ii. 142.
92:1 Gibbon, Dec. and Fall of Rom. Emp. iv. 113.
92:2 Strabo, lib. xvi. 750.
93:1 Plate in Maurice and Bryant.
93:2 Lib. i. c. 9.
93:3 Strabo, 756.
94:1 Lampridius, cited by Jablonski Panth. Ægypt. 89.
94:2 OBEL is probably the same as BEL--the great god of the Babylonians.
94:3 Deut. iii. 4.
95:1 See Gale. Court of Gentiles, v. L b. ii. 58.
99:1 Cited by Stillingfleet. Orig. Sac, book iii. c. 3. s. 18.
99:2 Beger de Num. Creten. Serpentif. 8.
100:1 Nelson, Fasts and Festivals.
101:1 Archæol. vol. xxiii.
101:2 See Spanheim, 212, &c.
102:1 Strabo, lib. 13.
103:1 De Animal. lib. xii. c. 39.
104:1 Gronov. vii. 869, on the Arundelian Marbles and Stone found at Megara.
104:2 It is remarkable that this city is particularly stigmatized in Scripture as "Satan's seat,"---"where Satan dwelleth."-Rev. ii. 13.
110:1 Pliny.
110:2 Bryant, Anal. ii. 207.
110:3 Anal. ii. 209.
110:4 Strabo, 653.
111:1 Geog. Sacr. Part 2. lib. i. c. 7.
111:2 Geog. Sacr. Part 2. lib. i. c. 7. citing Diod. and Hygin.
111:3 Faber derives Phorbas from Ph’-or-ob-as, "the burning solar serpent." (Cabiri. i. 351.)
112:1 Strabo, 659.
113:1 Bochart. Geog. Sac. Part. 2. lib. i. c. 9.
113:2 Cited by Bochart, ut supra.
114:1 Bryant, Anal. ii. 460.
115:1 Koch de Cultu Serpentum, p. 30; also Suidas.
115:2 New Memoirs of Literature. Anno 1725, vol. i. 421.
Serpent Temples
CHAPTER VI. SERPENT TEMPLES.
I. THE intimate connexion between the solar and serpent worship has
already been ascertained. From which it appears, that, in the confusion
of Pagan idolatry, these superstitions, originally independent, became
so closely interwoven, that from their union sprung up a new kind of
idolatry, and a new god, who, partaking of the attributes of the SUN and
of the SERPENT, united their names, and was worshipped as APOLLO 1.
The union of the two religions is, not obscurely, intimated in the
legend of Apollo Pythius; in which this deity is represented as taking
possession of a temple which had been originally dedicated to the serpent alone.
The same god, Apollo, was sometimes called OPHEL, which is nearly the same name, dropping only the syllable ON, which signifies the sun; for by this time the word EL had arrived at the same signification. EL means god, from the Hebrew אל; and when the sun came to be deified, he was naturally called EL, whence the Greeks obtained the word Ἥλιος, to denote "the sun."
APOLLO, then, being the SERPENT-SOLAR DEITY, his temples will be those in which we must look for the temples of THE SERPENT; for though in a few instances we may find the serpent adored alone, yet in no place shall we find a serpent-temple, in which the rites of the sun were not also partially celebrated.
1. Upon the introduction of images to express objects of worship, the solar deity was not unfrequently represented by conical stones in an upright position. These were called by the Greeks βαιτύλια--derived probably from the Hebrew, בית־אל, "the house," or "dwelling place of God." The earliest mention of such a stone occurs in Gen. xxviii, where Jacob erects one as a pillar, in remembrance of his celebrated dream, and, consecrating it to God, calls the name of the place Bethel. In process of time the stone itself was called Bethel, and similar pillars were hence named βαιτύλια, and supposed to be animated with the presence of the deity 1. The Ophites called them Abadir 2, from the name of the serpent-solar god: and they were conical, as representing a ray of the sun.
These conical pillars gave the first notion of an obelisk, which is a similar monument on a larger scale. The word obelisk, according to Bryant, is derived from OBEL, the name of the god to whom they were dedicated. This was hellenized into ὀβελίσκος. OBEL was the Apollo of Syria; and, probably, HELIOGABALUS was the same deity; for this god was represented by a black stone of conical form, which was said to have dropped from heaven, and was revered as an image of the sun, at Emesa.
In the Caaba of Mecca there is also a black stone, said to have fallen from heaven. The Mahometans generally hold it in great veneration 1. This was, probably, of the same kind as the Heliogabalus of Emesa--a probability which is strengthened by the name of the temple--Caaba: for this word may be a corruption of Ca-ab-ir, which means "the temple of ABIR," the solar serpent 2.
PYRAMIDS were obelisks of the most magnificent order; but it is supposed by Bryant that the obelisk originally represented the deity, of whom the pyramid, in times of improved architecture, was the temple 3. As the obelisk was an improvement upon the original Baitulia, it preserved the pointed form of these sacred stones in its apex--every obelisk terminating in a small pyramidal figure, which, like the Baitulia, was intended to be the representation of a sun's ray. The word pyramid itself means "a ray of the sun 1," from the Coptic Pi-ra-mu-e.
2. AN AGGREGATE of BAITULIA formed the first temples which were erected: and these temples were generally built in the figures of the hierograms of their respective gods. Thus the worshippers of the sun arranged their Baitulia in a circle, to represent the sun's disk. Many such temples are scattered through Europe, especially in Britain. Stonehenge is of this description; but from the transverse stones which rest upon the columns, and the evident signs of art and the chisel, this temple seems to be of a much more recent date than any other Druidical structure now extant. It is observable however that even in Stonehenge the upright columns are somewhat of the pyramidal figure--thus preserving the memory of their original consecration to the sun.
As the worshippers of the sun collected their Baitulia into circular, so the votaries of THE SERPENT formed theirs into a serpentine figure. Examples of this structure may be seen in several parts of England, but more especially at Carnac in Britany which is the most extensive and most remarkable relic of the Celtic religion in the world. Of this kind also was the Ophite temple described in Ovid, as passed by Medea in her flight from Attica to Colchis--
FACTAQUE DE SAXO LONGI SIMULACHRA DRACONIS. That the ancient Ophite temples were built of single and separate stones arranged after the manner of the avenues of Carnac is probable from the devices which appear on Tyrian coins, where a serpent is seen between two upright unhewn columns.
3. In process of time, however, the simple serpentine avenues underwent a great and elegant change. Instead of the solitary snake, moving in graceful sinuosities over hill and dale, or lying dormant in an uniform straight line, the serpent was made to wind his majestic form through the centre of a circle or globe. The sinuosities were still characteristically preserved, and the circular area as well as the serpentine avenues was still formed of the sacred Baitulia. The temple of Abury in Wiltshire was a beautiful specimen of this order of Ophite sanctuaries. This description of temple may, I conceive, have arisen from the union of the Solar and Ophite religions, after the suppression of the latter by the votaries of the former. The constant wars of the sun and serpent, and the general overthrow of the Ophite worship, have been alluded to in the course of this volume.
The worshippers of the Sun, being victorious, every where took possession of the Ophite temples. It is probable that in so doing, they did not at once destroy them: but building their own circular temples in the centre, formed the original serpent into avenues and approaches to the Sanctuary of the SUN. This compound temple was called a DRACONTIUM: from which is derived the nameidea of a DRAGON, which is a fabulous monster frequently mentioned but little understood by the poets who employed it to decorate a tale of wonder. "DRACONTIUM" has been ingeniously imagined by my friend the Rev. George Andrews, to be a derivation from דֶּרֶּך.־איֹן (Derech On)--"an avenue of On:" ON being the title of the SUN in Egypt and Phœnicia. This derivation is the most expressive that can be assigned, and accounts at once for the origin of the fabulous dragon, which is said to have been a large serpent peculiar totemples. Thus Servius in his Commentary on Virgil, defining the different kinds of serpents, says, "Angues aquarum, serpentes terrarum, DRACONES templorumt radition, and tradition preserved the memory of the fact. The word "Dracontium" as significant of a solar Ophite temple, would be readily adopted even by the Ophites themselves. For while the sun-worshippers understood by it "an avenue of the Sun," the serpent-worshippers would merge the circle in the avenues, and call the whole a DRAGON--A LARGE SERPENT. Hence the origin and the superstition of the DRAGON.
The DRACONTIA of the Solar-Ophites were of various forms, embracing every figure of the Ophite hierogram 1. Some were straight--others were formed by onetwo issuing serpents. Consider the more simple, before we describe the complex dracontium. I will therefore begin with the temple of
CARNAC. 1. The dracontium of Carnac is one of the most interesting remains of the Celtic religion. It is situated half a mile from the village of that name, in the department of the Morbihan in Britany; nine miles from the beautifully situated town of Auray, and approaches to within a mile of the Bay of Quiberon.
I visited this temple in the summer of 1831, and again in the spring of 1832. In my first visit I was accompanied by General de Penhouët, an antiquary highly esteemed in his native Britany, who had inquired deeply into the nature and figure of the temple. He pronounced it to be a Dracontium:--an opinion which has been confirmed by my subsequent survey of it made in company with Mr. Murray Vicars, a landsurveyor of Exeter; by whose exertions I have been furnished with a beautiful and accurate plan of the whole temple upon the scale of nine inches to a mile.
The temple known as "The Stones of Carnac," begins at the village of Erdeven, passes midway by Carnac, and terminates at a narrow part of the Marine lake of La Trinitè. The whole length of the temple, following its sinuosities, is eight miles. The average width from Erdeven to Lemaenac, is 200 feet; and from Lemaenac to the end, 350 feet. The highest stones are at Kerzerho, Lemaenac, Kermario, and Kerlescant; at which points they average from 15 to 17 feet high, and from 30 to 40 feet in circumference. The vacant spaces, noticed below, have been cleared to build the adjacent villages of Plouharnel and Carnac, and the numerous walls which intersect the country:--
From a to b the stones have been removed; from b to c they reappear.
From c to d there is a vacancy; from d to e a recovery.
From e to f no stones are visible; from f to g a few.
From g to h is a dreary waste; at h there may have been an area similar to Lemaenac; from h to k is a continuation of stones.
p. 369
From k to l is another vacancy; at l, m, n, o, are a few stones; the intermediate spaces void.
From Lemaenac to p is a beautiful continuation.
From p to q are only a few scattered stones. From q to r the parallelitha are preserved; from r to s broken.
From Kerlescant to the end the Dracontium is perfect 1.
The labour of its erection may be imagined from the fact, that it originally consisted of eleven rows of stones, about ten thousand in number, of which, more than three hundred averaged from fifteen to seventeen feet in height, and from sixteen to twenty or thirty feet in girth:--one stone even measuring forty-two feet in circumference.
From the accompanying plate it will be seen that the course of the avenues is sinuous, describing the figure of an enormous serpent moving over the ground. But this resemblance is more striking upon an actual inspection of the original. Then the alternations of the high and low stones, regularly disposed, mark with sufficient accuracy the swelling of the serpent's muscles as he moves along: and a spectator standing upon one of the Cromlech hills, round which the serpent sweeps, cannot but be struck by the evidence of design which appears in the construction of the avenues.
In the course of the Dracontium there are two regularly defined areas; one, near the village of Carnac, which is of the shape of a horse shoe, or a bell; the other towards the eastern extremity, which approaches the figure of a rude circle, being a parallelogram with rounded corners. There are appearances also, but too ill-defined to be noticed, of other areas of a similar description.
The circle and the horse shoe were both sacred figures in the Druidical religion, as may be seen in Stonehenge where they are united; the outer circles inclosing inner horse shoes. I cannot find any connection between the latter symbol and the tenets of the Celtic religion, unless it be intended as a representation of the moon. The torques (of which a splendid collection, twelve in number, and £1000 sterling in value in pure gold, was found in Britany in 1832,) were of the lunar form. And, perhaps, from this symbol (whatever it may have expressed) was derived the superstition so prevalent in Britain, of nailing a horse shoe over a door to scare away evil spirits, in the same manner as the sign of the cross is supposed to be efficacious by superstitious Roman Catholics. The worshippers of Carnac may, on this supposition, have been lunar Ophites; but this is mere conjecture.
It is curious, however, that at Erdeven, where the temple commences, an annual dance, describing the Ophite hierogram of the circle and serpent, is still kept up by the peasants at the Carnival. But the only tradition which I could find respecting the stones, was the universal superstition that they once possessed life, and were petrified as they stand. Some of the peasants believe that they were the Roman army who, pursued the centurion Cornelius on account of his conversion to Christianity; and were petrified through his prayers. Others imagine that certain supernatural dwarfs erected them in one night, and still inhabit, each the stone which he erected. Both these opinions have their remote origin in the animated Baitulia; and are paralleled by similar traditions in England, &c. respecting the Solar and Ophite temples.
Near that part of the dracontium which approaches Carnac is a singular mound of great elevation, which was once evidently conical--the upper portion of it being artificial. It is analogous to the remarkable hill of Silbury, which is similarly connected with the dracontium of Abury. These mounds were probably raised for the purpose of altars, upon which the perpetual fire kindled by the sun, was kept burning, in conformity with the rites of the Solar religion. They are very common in Persia, and may be alluded to in Scripture under the name of "the high places," upon which idolatry performed her rites. The conical mound near Carnac, which is so situated as to be seen for many miles, and from every part of the temple, has been consecrated by the Christians to the Archangel Michael: to whom also is sacred almost every natural or artificial cone in Britany. The reason of this dedication may be readily assigned. St. Michael is the destroyer of the spiritual dragon of the Apocalypse; whose mutilated image lies prostrate below the mound, and whose worshippers were converted to the faith of the triumphant religion, which, in token of its victory, erected upon the solar mount a chapel dedicated to the destroyer of "the apostate serpent." By this consecration then is indicated the triumph of Christianity over Ophiolatreia: and it is but consistent that the people who allegorized the conversion of the Ophites by the metaphor of a victory over serpents should, in token of this victory, erect upon the high places of idolatry, chapels to the Archangel, the enemy and the victor of the SERPENT-TEMPTER.
This mound may possibly have given name to the adjacent village which may be called Carn-ac, from "Cairn," a hill, and "hac," a snake. The "serpent's hill" would be an appropriate title for Mont St. Michel. In the same manner the collection of columns called Lemaenac, may have been named from maen, "stones," and "hac," a snake.
In illustration of the dracontium of Carnac may be adduced a small but interesting Ophite temple in the Ile aux Moines, in the Morbihan. The only part of this temple now perfect is the lunar or campanular area, corresponding to that in the dracontium of Carnac, which seems to have occupied the centre of the sanctuary. Some few of the stones which composed the avenues are standing, but very scattered. Many have been removed within the last twenty years to build walls and houses. At the southern extremity of the avenues the dracontium terminated in an oblong tumulus of considerable dimensions: one end of which being opened, has exposed to view a very beautiful Kistväen. There was also an obelisk at the head of the tumulus. But the most remarkable circumstance attending this tumulus is its name--it is called Pen-Ab--that is, "the head of AB," the sacred serpent Now, although this coincidence, without the knowledge of the temple's course, would prove little or nothing; yet combined with the fact, that parallel and sinuous avenues have once existed, running from Penab towards the middle of the island, and calling to mind the general custom of the ancient world which involved the name of the deity in that of the temple--we may fairly infer that this temple of the Ile aux Moines was a dracontium sacred to the Ophite deity AB.
The name of the island itself--"the Isle of the Monks," records probably some early establishment of Druids, the recollection of whom has been thus preserved.
There are, I believe, other dracontia in Britany and Gaul; but not having examined them personally, I pass on to those in our own country, which bear the most evident marks of their Ophite dedication.
2. The most remarkable dracontium in England is that of ABURY in Wiltshire, about five miles west of Marlborough, on the Bath road; over which thousands of travellers pass without dreaming that the ground upon which they tread was once esteemed the most holy in Britain. Of the temple of Abury an invaluable account has been left by the learned and ingenious Dr. Stukeley, in a volume replete with deep research and interesting facts. Having perused this volume with the attention which it demands, the reader should next have recourse to the splendid work of Sir Richard Colt Hoare on "the History of Ancient Wiltshire," in which he will discover ABURY AS IT IS, in the ruins of its magnificence. The theory of Stukeley is here sanctioned by an indisputable authority, and his errors corrected with a judicious hand.
The temple of Abury may be thus succinctly described:--From a circle of upright stones, (without imposts,) erected at equal distances, proceeded two avenues in a wavy course, in opposite directions. These were the fore and hinder parts of the serpent's body, and they emerged from the lower segment of the circle, through which the serpent appeared to be passing from west to east. Within this great circle were four others, considerably smaller, two and two, described about two centres, but neither of them coincident with the centre of the great circle. They lay in the line drawn from the north-west to the south-east points, passing through the centre of the great circle. The great outer circle surrounded the chief part of the village of Abury or Avebury; and was itself encompassed by a mound and moat. The head of the serpent was formed of two concentric ovals, and rested on an eminence called Overton Hill. This part of the temple, as long as it stood, was traditionally named in the neighbourhood, the sanctuary. It was destroyed 1 in the seventeenth century, through the rapacity of the farmers, who converted the stones into materials for building, and repairing the roads. Overton Hill, upon which the head of the serpent rested, is the southern promontory of the Hakpen hills; and Dr. Stukeley supposes, that from the serpent's head the range was so named; for Hakpen is a compound word, which, in the British language, bore that signification--Hak, a snake; and Pen, the head. This conjecture he illustrates by the pertinent remark, that to this day, in Yorkshire, the peasants call snakes, hags and hagworms 1."
The tail of the serpent terminated in a valley towards Beckhampton; and the whole figure was so contrived, as to have the appearance of a vast snake creeping over hill and dale. From the circle to the head, the avenue consisted of one hundred stones on each side. The head was composed of a double oval, the outer containing forty, and the inner eighteen, stones. The tail consisted likewise of one hundred stones on each side, and was, as well as the avenue to the head, a mile in length. The area enclosed by the circular rampart, which surrounds the great circle, is twenty-eight acres, seventeen perches, as measured by Sir R. C. Hoare.
Midway between the extremities of the two serpentine avenues, where a horizontal line, connecting them, would meet a perpendicular let fall from the centre of the great circle, is a remarkable, artificial, conical mound, called SILBURY HILL, of very great elevation. This is supposed, by Stukeley, to be a sepulchral monument; but Sir R. C. Hoare, with more probability, considers it to be a part of the temple. It is, doubtless, a mound dedicated to the solar deity, like the pyramids of ancient Greece and Egypt; and corresponds with the OPHELTIN of classical mythology, and the Mont St. Michel of Curiae. In connexion with the serpent-temple, it identifies the whole structure as sacred to the deity known by the Greeks as APOLLO. Its very name imports "the hill of the sun."
A more stupendous monument of heathen idolatry, than Abury, is not to be found in England. Many of the stones were remaining in their positions, when Stukeley surveyed the temple in 1723; but a great number were destroyed by the farmers in his time, and many more have been broken up, and carried away since. The work of devastation, it is to be feared, is not yet finished; such is the ignorance and barbarism of cupidity.
There are now remaining, of the serpentine figure, only eleven stones of the avenue between Abury and Kennet: that is, of the avenue which passing through West Kennet terminated in the serpent's head on Overton Hill. Marks in the ground contiguous to eight of these eleven stones, show the original position of four others, which have been taken away. So that from the turnpike gate at Avebury, to that point of the Bath road which passes through Kennet, the avenue may be traced without much difficulty. One very large stone stands near the entrance of the circle; and between two others the road passes as it approaches Kennet; the remaining eight, and the four vacant loci, are found together in a field on the right. The large stone by the circle, and the two which are nearest to the Bath road, are accurate guides to the eye in tracing the whole avenue.
Besides these, I observed (Sept. 3, 1829), four subverted stones in the descent and bottom of the hill beyond Kennet, to the south of the Bath road, at the point where the neck of the serpent is supposed to have risen on Overton Hill. These are, evidently, the remains of the avenue from Kennet to "the sanctuary." Of "the sanctuary" itself, not a single stone remains.
Of the Beckhampton avenue, only two stones retain their original position; and these are in the middle of the avenue 1. I had not time to look for the loci of the others; and I therefore refer the reader to the elaborate descriptions of Dr. Stukeley and Sir R. C. Hoare, with them lamenting, that in a country like this such barbarism should have been permitted as would disgrace the most uncivilized of the hordes of Tartary--destroying piecemeal, for the sake of a few tons of stone or a few yards of barren ground, one of the most interesting and venerable monuments of antiquity in the world.
Some of these stones, however, resisted the utmost efforts of the destroyers, who, unable to break, sunk them in the ground by digging pits about them. Two of these stones lie six feet under ground in the premises of Mr. Butler, the landlord of the Kennet Inn, and over another the Bath road passes.
In the time of Dr. Stukeley, the peasants of the neighbourhood had a tradition that "no snakes could live within the circle of Abury." This notion may have descended from the times of the Druids, through a very natural superstition that the unhallowed reptile was divinely restrained from entering the sanctuary, through which the mystic serpent passed.
There have been found at Abury the usual Druidical relics of Celts, Anguina, &c.: and a proof that this was once a temple of very great resort, is afforded by the immense quantities of burnt bones, horns of oxen, and charcoal which have been discovered in the agger of the vallum. These are indications of great sacrifices. Dr. Stukeley was doubtful of the derivation of the word ABURY; but I think that a probable solution may be found in the compound titleאוב־אור serpens solis, for here are all the data required. The temple was the Ophite hierogram; the officiating priests were Druids, whose religion recognised the sun as a deity, and the serpent as a sacred emblem; the name of that mystic serpent was Aub, and a title of the solar deity, Aur or Ur: the whole temple represented the union of the serpentine with the circular sanctuaries, that is, of the temples of the Ophite and British Dracontia Solar superstition. What name then could be more expressive than AUBUR, or ABUR, "the serpent of the sun?" The present name of the village is Avebury, which the first describer of the temple (Mr. Aubrey, who lived in the seventeenth century) says, should have been written Aubury; and this reading he found in the legierbook of Malmesbury Abbey 1.
3. STANTON DREW. The second British dracontium in order of beauty, is that of Stanton Drew, in Somersetshire. It is situated near the village of Pensford, about five miles west of Bristol.
This temple, which is much dilapidated, originally consisted of one large circle connected by avenues with two smaller; and thus described the second order of the Ophite hierogram--the circle and two serpents. In Egyptian hieroglyphics, when two serpents are seen in connection, one typifies the Good and the other the Evil Principle. For the first knowledge of this temple as a dracontium, we are indebted to Sir Richard Colt Hoare. I visited it in 1831, and made the following observations.
The great circle is at present contained by only thirteen stones, and these are generally small, and much worn by the weather. It is probable that the original number was thirty. The dimensions of this circle or rather oval, are 126 yards by 115.
A small circle of eight stones, 32 feet in diameter, was connected with its eastern limb by an avenue of, perhaps, twenty stones. The length of this avenue is about 100 yards, and it is remarkable for its very great curvature, returning at a sharp angle towards the large circle, as if to represent a snake throwing back his head. Only ten stones of this avenue remain. The western circle is at the distance of 150 yards; and consisted of ten or twelve stones. Its diameter is forty-three yards, but I could trace no avenue between it and the oval. The ground is much broken in this part. A wall intersects it, and a road to a farm-yard passes through it. So that the removal of the stones may be accounted for without difficulty. I have no doubt whatever that an avenue connecting this smaller circle with the great one, once existed for analogy is in favour of the hypothesis, although no traces of the avenue remain.
I am confirmed in my opinion by a tradition of the neighbourhood, which almost universally accompanies Ophite temples. By this it appears that Keyna, the daughter of a Welsh prince, who lived in the fifth century, having left her country and crossed the Severn for the purpose of finding some secluded spot, where she might devote herself, without interruption, to religious contemplations, arrived in the neighbourhood of Stanton Drew. She requested permission from the prince of the country, to fix her residence at Keynsham, which was then an uncleared wood. The prince replied, that he would readily give the permission required; but it was impossible for any one to live in that place on account of the serpents, of the most venomous species, which infested it. Keyna, however, confident in her saintly gifts, accepted the permission, notwithstanding the warning: and taking possession of the wood, "converted by her prayers all the snakes and vipers of the place into stones. And to this day," remarks Capgrave, the recorder of the legend, "the stones in that country resemble the windings of serpents, through all the fields and villages, as if they had been so formed by the hand of the engraver."
The transformation of the serpents into stone is the fable which almost always denotes the neighbourhood of a Dracontium, as we may see in the legend of Cadmus and Harmonia, Python, and others. The remark of Capgrave may allude to the anguina, or serpent-stones, so often found in the vicinity of Druidical temples: or even to the specimens of the Cornua Ammonis, which I believe are sometimes found in the neighbourhood.
4. DARTMOOR. At Merivale bridge on Dartmoor, four miles from Tavistock, is an interesting group of temples, two of the dracontian, and two of the circular kind. The temples on Dartmoor are usually in pairs. Whenever these are circles we may suppose that one of them was sacred to the sun, and the other to the moon, like the double circles within the great circular area of Abury. At Merivale, the four temples are within a few yards of each other; and though small, are tolerably perfect--one of the circles only being destroyed.
The avenues, which are straight, run parallel to each other, east and west. They are 105 feet apart, the longer is 1143 feet in length: the shorter 792. The larger of these temples is of the same order as that of Stanton Drew, having a central circle, and two avenues, each terminated by a circle. These avenues are straight: but this makes no difference of moment from the theory of serpent temples; for they are equally Dracontia, i.e. "Avenues of the sun." The second temple has but one circle, which is at the head, and corresponds to the Celtic temple of Callernish, in the island of Lewis; but the latter is far more magnificent. Dr. Stukeley pronounced Callernish to be a Dracontium; but from the descriptions of it by Dr. Borlase and others, it can only be considered such, if that title be extended to straight avenues, as well as those which are sinuous.
Of this rectilinear order there are other Dracontia on Dartmoor, although not so extensive as those of Merivale. On the brook side below Black Tor, are two avenues parallel to each other, and running east and west; one of which may be traced for 300 feet, and the other for 180 feet. They are forty feet apart, and each is terminated by a circle thirty feet in diameter enclosing a cairn. The stones average the same height as those at Merivale, being from three to four feet in elevation.
Similar avenues, but running north and south, occur on Gidleigh common, of which the stones are three feet and a half high and triangular. They may be traced for 432 and 120 feet respectively.
Other monuments of the same nature are scattered over Dartmoor, which from the multitude of such and similar British remains must at one time have been very thickly inhabited. Vestiges of circular huts are not unfrequently seen on the sides of hills, now seldom pressed by the foot of man, and are melancholy memorials of unknown ages, nameless tribes, and generations long since mingled with the dust. It is probable that the early inhabitants of Dartmoor, were driven into these bleak and barren regions from pleasanter and more fertile lands by the pressure of the Romans, Saxons and Danes: and that the parallelitha and circles above described were built in humble imitation of more splendid temples in the lower country. All the works on Dartmoor are those of a feeble and impoverished people, but amply illustrative of the religion which they exercised in happier times.
5. SHAP. The longest dracontium in Britain, and the only one that in extent could compete with Carnac, was at Shap in Westmorland. The stones were, however, small as compared with those of Abury; the largest now remaining, measures only eight feet in height. The temple of Shap begins at about half a mile south of the village of that name, in a field adjoining the Kendal road; and from this point proceeds in a northerly course, crossing the road near Shap in two rows. The greatest width of the avenue is at the head in the field above mentioned, and measures eighty-eight feet. At this extremity it is bounded by a slightly curved line of six stones placed at irregular intervals; but they appear to have been never erected. Near Shap the two rows converge to the width of fifty-nine feet, and again separating, but not so much as to destroy the appearance of parallelism, proceed in a northerly direction, in which course they may be traced at intervals for a mile and a half. The avenue throughout preserves the sinuosities of the serpent-temple.
Although scarcely two miles of the temple are now recoverable, yet tradition states it once extended to Moor Dovey, a distance of seven miles from Shap! In this respect it almost rivals the celebrated Carnac, which can only be traced for eight miles; but in the number and magnitude of its columns, it must have fallen very short of the grandeur of that magnificent dracontium. Indeed nothing in Britain can compete with this pride of Britany. All our parallelitha contain but two rows of stones, whereas the temple of Carnac has eleven!
About a mile to the N. E. of Shap is a circle composed of large stones, in tolerable preservation; but whether it was connected with the parallelithon or not, I am unable to determine. The probability of the connection is however great; but I fear the temple is in too dilapidated a state to solve this question.
Dr. Stukeley, who also saw, but did not survey the temple of Shap, pronounced it at once to be a dracontium. The indications must, at that time, (one hundred years since,) have been much stronger than they are now. A traveller in these days would hardly notice the few stones which lie by the side of the Kendal road. Dr. Stukeley, in a letter to an eminent antiquary of his day, mentions with approbation a plan of the temple of Shap as drawn by a gentleman of Carlisle; but I have not been able to find this document, which now that the dracontium is nearly destroyed, would be almost invaluable.
II. The above are the principal known dracontia in Europe. Many more may be perhaps discovered upon diligent inquiry. Parallelitha, as such, have been seen by thousands of travellers. The majority have looked, and passed on with indifference: better informed persons have considered them as merely relics of the Druidical superstition; and the covetous farmer has converted, with a ruthless hand, their venerable columns into materials for building walls or repairing houses! But a more enlightened age may even yet rescue from annihilation monuments which have been at once the work and the admiration of ages. The light which has been thrown upon remote antiquity by these venerable ruins is too strong to be extinguished. It is like their own perpetual fire, which, though quenched upon Silbury and Mount St. Michael, still burns in the rites of the ceremonial religion which, at the ashes of Baal, has kindled the tapers of the Church of Rome.
Among the interesting discoveries which result from the theory of dracontia, is the view which it developes of the origin of columnar architecture. We admire the beauties and the grandeur of the Parthenon: we gaze with rapture on the isolated pillars of exquisite workmanship, which standing upon the barren and desolated plains of Greece or Asia Minor, fill us alternately with admiration of the art which executed, and indignation at the barbarism which defaced them. But we little think that in the rude and rugged columns of Abury, or Carnac, we see a prototype of the most admired pillars of the most splendid temples of ancient Greece or Asia! And yet there can be little doubt but that such is the fact.
The temples of the sun at Palmyra and Geraza, both in the country formerly devoted to the worship of OUB, the serpent god of Canaan, are illustrations in point. An examination of their columns, which supported no roof will justify the inference that they were substituted for those of some ancient dracontia occupying the same sites. The avenues of Palmyra particularly illustrate this theory by their sinuous course, although sinuosity as we have before observed, is not indispensably necessary to a dracontium, several (such as Callernish and the temples on Dartmoor) being straight. The majority of serpent temples were however sinuous; and such was the temple of the sun at Palmyra. A long avenue of two double rows of columns connected the portal with the sanctuary, which was in the shape of a parallelogram.
The sanctuary of Geraza was formed by a circle of columns, connected like those of Stonehenge by transverse stones resting upon their summits. A straight avenue of two rows led to this circle, and threw out near it two arms of a cross. The plan of the temple is almost a facsimile of the dracontium of Callernish; while the resemblance of its circle to the outer one of Stonehenge would almost persuade us that the architects of the one had either had communication with those of the other, or had copied their design.
Nothing is more probable than that the first step in templar architecture being to group together the isolated baitulia, the second would be to polish and carve the columns already existing in a rude state; or to substitute for them others of a more finished kind. Thus, by degrees, the rough "petræ ambrosiæ" of Greece or Canaan would be fashioned into the elegance of the Parthenon, or of the temple of the sun at Palmyra. And although the one had no avenues, and the other no circle, yet both being columnar, may be referred for their origin to the same standard of early architecture, the dracontium: for the varieties of the dracontium include every figure of the classical temple. The dracontium had its avenues, straight and sinuous; its circles; its lunes; its ovals, and its parallelograms. Merivale, Abury, and Carnac, exemplify them all.
Many may deem these notions crude and extravagant; but I confess that the impression which they leave upon my mind is great; neither can I consent to efface it until other explanations, more satisfactory than any hitherto advanced, supply me with a better theory 1.
III. Another discovery still more interesting and useful arises from the doctrine of dracontia. By this may be obtained a key to the many absurd and incredible histories of Pagan mythology respecting enormous serpents and dragons
covering acres of ground; which could have been nothing but vast dracontia. Dr. Stukeley, the inventor of the theory, has himself applied it to this purpose; and as a few more cases may be adduced in corroboration of his opinion, I will add them. The facts are curious; but the principle upon which this treatise was undertaken, is altogether independent of their probability, although it may be greatly illustrated by it. For the universal prevalence of the worship of the serpent, which it was my object to prove, has, I trust, been satisfactorily shown.
It is remarked by Stukeley, that the celebrated PYTHON was, originally, nothing more nor less than a serpentine temple, like that of Abury. Python is described by Ovid (Met. i. 459,) as covering several acres,--"tot jugera ventre prementem." Of the same kind, Dr. Stukeley thinks, was the TITYUS of Virgil, who covered nine acres of ground.
----------"Per tota novem cui jugera corpus
Porrigitur."
Æneid, vi. 596. [paragraph continues] In corroboration of the first of these opinions we may observe that Homer describes Apollo as building a temple 1 on the spot where he had slain Python. The stones of which it was composed were "broad and very long." He was assisted by Trophonius, who laid "the threshold-stone;" and a multitude of labourers built the temple . Its figure was circular in this part; for such I take to be the meaning of the word Ἀμφὶ, in the line which describes the labour 2. For it can hardly mean that they built the temple "round" the "threshold." This, then, was the sanctum, and may have corresponded with the great circle of Abury.
The description of the building here ceases; and the confused legend makes a transition from the temple to the serpent who was slain there by Apollo, and at his command putrefied upon the spot by the sun. But in a few lines afterwards Apollo is described as meditating what sort of men he shall put as priests into his "STONY PYTHO 3." By the same epithet he describes Pytho in other parts of his works; and Pinder 4 makes use of the same designation. It is true
that this epithet may allude only to the rocky nature of the soil; but it may allude also to the stones of the temple, and would be employed probably for that purpose, on the supposition that the temple was of the serpentine kind. There is something remarkable in the circumstance that Trophonius should be concerned in laying the chief stone; and though Agamedes is joined with him in the office, yet Trophonius is, assuredly, not a builder of the temple, but the temple itself. For we have already seen that TROPHONIUS is no other than TOR-OPH-ON, "the temple of the solar serpent." Here then we have the serpent again! and putting all these detached facts together, making also due allowance for poetical imagery and mythological exaggeration, we may, not unreasonably, conclude, that the whole history relates to the erection of a SERPENT-TEMPLE, like that of Abury.
If Ovid, in describing Python, alludes to the serpentine figure of the temple, he comes nearer to facts when he represents serpents changed into stone. (Met. xi. 56: xii. 23.)
In these instances of metamorphosis, the coincident features of the story indicate Ophiolatreia. Thus Apollo is the person who petrifies the Lesbian dragon (Met. xi.); and the scene of the second story is Bœotia, a country where serpent-worship was peculiarly prevalent.
But the poet comes still more closely to the mark, when he describes the flight of Medea from Attica to Colchis. Her chariot was drawn by dragons, and she was passing from one Ophite colony to another. In her passage,
"Æoliam Pitanem lævâ de parte reliquit,
FACTAQUE DE SAXO LONGI SIMULACHRA DRACONIS 1." When we consider that the word Pitane may be immediately derived from פתן, serpens, we have a presumptive evidence that the serpent was worshipped there: and the above lines from Ovid, corroborating the conjecture, describe the temple; which was, in truth, LONGI SIMULACHRA DRACONIS. Had the poet intended to describe Abury or Carnac, he could not have represented them more accurately.
Dr. Stukeley thinks that the fable of Cadmus, "sowing serpents' teeth," alluded to "his building a serpentine temple:" which is not unlikely: for under such an imagery might the stones of the temple be poetically described, the order of teeth being that in which such stones were erected, single and upright, at equal distances.
Cadmus and Harmonia were changed into serpents at Enchelia, in Illyria, where "stones and a temple" were erected to their memory. Scylax Caryandensis, cited by Bryant 1, says,
Κάδμου καὶ Ἁρμονίας οἱ λίθοι εἰσὶν ἐνταῦθα, καὶ ἱερόν The situation of this temple is "half a day's sail from the river Arion 2." No such river occurs in the maps of the country; and Vossius corrects it into "Drylo:" but Scylax, who notices so few things, and only the most remarkable, in his brief memoranda, could hardly have been mistaken in so important a matter as the name of a river. The temple was Ophite; and it is very probable that the nearest river would be sacred to the solar deity. For "Arion" compounds the two titles of the sun, Ault and ON.
"The temple," observes Bryant, "was an Ophite Petra, which induced people to believe that there were in these temples serpents petrified 1. It is possible that in later times the deity may have been worshipped under this form; whence it might be truly said of Cadmus and Harmonia, that they would one day be exhibited in stone." Bryant here refers to Nonnus Dionusiac. l. xliv. p. 1144, who says of Cadmus and Harmonia,
Λαϊνέην ἤμελλον ἔχειν ὀφιώδεα μορφήν. This line, however, I cannot find in Nonnus: but one not much unlike it occurs in lib. xliv. line 367, of that writer:
--------οἷς Χρόνος ἕρπων
Ὤπασε πετρήεσσαν ἔχειν ὀφιώδεα μορφήν In which the allusion to the serpentine form of the temple appears evident. The conversion of temples into gods is of common occurrence in mythology; and I have no doubt but that the line from Nonnus, above cited, describes the figure of the λίθοι καὶ ἱερὸν, remarked by Scylax. Bryant seems to think that "the stones" sacred to Cadmus and Harmonia were merely stylæ--commemorative pillars; and consequently introduces the word "two" into his translation, which is not in the original. The words of Scylax are, "Here are the stones and temple of Cadmus and Harmonia." From which it does not necessarily appear that "the stones" and "the temple" were not identical. I believe they were; and that they constituted a serpent-temple like Abury: or, as Bryant elsewhere employs the word, A DRACONTIUM.
For the origin of this word, "dracontium," he adduces a derivation by no means indicative of his usual penetration. Thus he tells us, that "toward each extremity of the oval temples of the Phœnicians were erected mounds, on which were towers. These towers were generally royal edifices, and at the same time held sacred. They were termed Tarchon, like Tarchonium in Hetruria, which, by a corruption, was in latter times rendered Trachon . . . . . . . The term Trachon seems to have been still further sophisticated by the Greeks, and expressed Δράκων 1." . . . . . . . . "When the Greeks understood that in these temples the people worshipped a serpent deity, they concluded that Trachon was a serpent; and hence came the name of DRACO to be appropriated to such an animal 1."
How much more simple and probable is the inference of Dr. Stukeley, who reasons from a fact? Verbal coincidences can never be put in competition with historical facts; but in the case before us, these coincidences are strained, and the fact of the existence of a serpentine temple at Abury placed beyond all doubt 2. This error of Bryant leads him into another, when he talks about the "windows 3" of a dracontium. We should be startled at a theory founded upon the windows of Abury, or Stonehenge.
That the conjecture of Bryant, in deriving the legends of the mythological dragons from the word Tarchon, is inadmissible, appears again by an extract from Pausanias, which (curiously enough) he himself quotes to corroborate his position, whereas it tends directly to confirm that of Stukeley. In the road between Thebes and Glisas, you may see a place encircled by select stones, which the Thebans call THE SERPENT'S HEAD 1."
Dr. Stukeley also cites this remarkable passage, to illustrate his observations upon the. HEAD of the Abury serpent, which rested upon a promontory, called, in like manner, SNAKES-HEAD. (Hakpen.) This was also "a place encircled by select stones." And to complete the resemblance, there is near this Theban temple, a lofty hill corresponding to Silbury, upon which a temple was erected to Jupiter 2.
But, though the premises of Bryant were conjectural, his conclusions were for the most part correct, and his illustrations ingenious. I proceed to subjoin some of them as equally applicable to our theory.
"Iphicrates related that in Mauritania there were dragons of such extent that grass grew upon their backs. What can be meant under this representation but a dracontium, within whose precincts they encouraged verdure 3?"
Again: "It is said (by Maximus Tyrius, Dissert. 8, c. vi. p. 85,) that Taxiles, a mighty prince of India, carried Alexander the Great to see a dragon, which was sacred to Dionusus, and itself esteemed a god. It was of a stupendous size, being in extent equal to five acres, and resided in a low, deep place, walled round to a great height. The Indians offered sacrifices to it, and it was daily fed by them from their flocks and herds." . . . . "Two dragons of the like nature are mentioned by Strabo, (lib. xv. p. 1022) which are said to have resided in the mountains of Abisares, in India; the one was eighty cubits in length, the other one hundred and forty. Similar to the above, is the account given by Posidonius of a serpent which he saw in the plains of Macra in Syria . . . . He says that it was about an acre in length, and of a thickness so remarkable, that two persons on horseback, when they rode on opposite sides, could not see one another. Each scale was as big as a shield, and a man might ride in at its mouth. What can this description allude to," says Bryant, "but the ruins of an Ophite temple, which is represented in this enigmatical mariner to raise admiration? The plains of Macra were not far from Lebanon and Hermon, where the Hivites resided, and where serpent-worship particularly prevailed. The Indian
dragon above mentioned seems to have been of the same nature. It was, probably, a temple and its environs, where a society of priests resided, who were maintained by the public, and who worshipped the deity under the semblance of a serpent 1."
Besides these Ophite temples, Bryant discovered a legend of two others in the neighbourhood of Damascus 2. These dragons, according to Nonnus, were overcome by the hero Damascenus, an earthborn giant. "One of the monsters with which he fought is described of an enormous size--a serpent, in extent of fifty acres: which certainly must have a reference to the grove and garden, wherein such Ophite temple stood, at Damascus. For the general measurement of these wonderful beings by acres, proves that such an estimate could not relate to any thing of solid contents, but to an inclosure of that superficies."
The dragon of Colchos, which guarded the golden fleece, is also considered by Bryant to have been a dracontic temple. There was a settlement of Ophites in Colchis, which is indicated by the name of the river Ophis. This river was so named from a body of people, who settled upon its banks, and were said to be con-ducted by a serpent 1.
An attentive perusal of Diodorus Siculus, lib. iv. s. 47, will perhaps incline the reader to acquiesce in the conclusion of Bryant respecting the Colchian dragon. Diodorus himself resolves the legend into a story about a temple, where the treasure, the golden fleece, was kept under the guardianship of Tauric soldiers. These, he contends, were the bulls, who were associated with the dragon in guarding the treasure. The dragon was their commander, an officer named Draco. The legend is, that the golden fleece deposited there by Phryxus, was guarded by a sleepless dragon; and bulls, breathing fire from their nostrils, lay by the altar of the temple. Jason, having first subdued the bulls, compelled them to the yoke, and ploughed up the ground; in which, like Cadmus, he sowed serpents' teeth. These teeth, becoming animated in the form of armed men, fought together and destroyed one another. He then lulled the dragon, and bore away the fleece 2.
The explanation of Diodorus is simple, and in default of a better, not unreasonable. But the word "Tor," which he supposes to have been misunderstood for "bulls," when in reality it alluded to men who came from Taurica, is much more likely to have been the Chaldee טור, a tower, mistaken by Greeks, who were ignorant of the language of the country, for תור, a bull. Hence the whole error. The "bulls" were towers--perhaps fortified lighthouses; and the light which burned in them gave occasion to the fable of "fire breathing bulls 1."
Having resolved the "bulls" into "towers," we may reasonably conjecture that the "dragon" was stone. The temple will thus become a dracontium. This dracontium was stormed by Jason, who, having first taken the towers which protected the temple, moved against the latter, compelling the garrisons of the former into his service: and having by some stratagem--perhaps a nocturnal assault--set the defenders of the dracontium against each other, succeeded in his enterprise of plundering it of the treasure. The sowing of the serpents' teeth, I conceive to be an expression which has crept into the fable, from a confused recollection of the figure of the temple, and the manner of its formation, by upright, equidistant stones. This incident, so violently and uselessly introduced, seems an index to the whole fable, and identifies it as relating to the plundering of a dracontium.
In turning over the pages of Pausanias and Strabo, we frequently meet with passages which may naturally be interpreted into descriptions of Ophite temples. Thus near the river Chimarrus in Argolis was a circular inclosure "marking the spot where Pluto descended into Tartarus with Proserpine." This legend indicates the temple to be a dracontium of which the central circle only remained. Other temples occur which might admit the same inference; but they are for the most part too obscurely described to adduce as illustrations. I cannot, however, pass by, without a remark, "the stones of Amphion," mentioned by Pausanias, (568,) because the legend attached to them corresponds with a tradition very common in England, respecting the circular, druidical temples:--"The stones which lie near the tomb of Amphion (in Bœotia) are rude and not laboured by art. They say that they were the stones which followed the music of Amphion."
A similar fable is related of Orpheus, who, it will be remembered, was the high priest of Ophiolatreia in Thrace.
Respecting the druidical circles, it was a common tradition that the stones which composed them were once animated beings, and petrified in the mazes of a dance. Thus Stonehenge was called "the dance of the giants;" and Rowldrich, a Druids' temple, near Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire, is supposed to have been a king and his nobles similarly metamorphosed. The same is reported of Stanton Drew, in Somersetshire, which is vulgarly called "the weddings;" being supposed to have been a company of friends at a nuptial festival, who were petrified in the midst of a dance.
Another Druids' temple, in Cumberland, is called "Long Meg and her daughters" from a similar tradition 1.
if these coincidences prove nothing else, they prove that "the stones of Amphion," and "Orpheus," were circular temples of the druidical structure. The stones of Amphion were probably a temple of the sun; "AMPHION" being
nothing more than AM-PHI-ON 1, "the oracle of Ham the sun:" and ORPHEUS itself may be resolved into a similar meaning--OR-PHI, "solis oraculum."
The frequent mention of the serpent-deity Ops, in connexion with STONES, is a remarkable feature in remote mythology. It was OPS who deceived Saturn with the stone Abadir; and "the heathen philosophers explained OPS as the divine power pervading mountains and stony places 2." Might not this connexion have arisen from the peculiar construction of the Ophite temples?
These circumstances may appear trivial; but trifles not unfrequently lead to important results. In every walk of science, a trifle, disregarded by incurious thousands, has repaid the inquisitiveness of a single observer with unhoped-for knowledge. And what has been in science, may be in history. Little events, and accidental allusions, in themselves insignificant, may form a link in the chain of obscure mythology, which shall act as a conductor to scriptural truth.
Footnotes 359:1 Ἀπόλλων may be decomposed into AP, or AB, serpent; EL, deus; and ON, sol: so that serpens-deus-sol is the name of the deity, whose other title, PHŒBUS, (Phi-oub) denotes the oracular serpent.
361:1 See Bochart. Geog. Sacr. 1. i. p. 38; also Maurice, Ind. Antiq. ii. 347. Sanchoniathon in his Cosmogony has the following passage: "Moreover they say that the god Ouranus invented the Baitulia, having made stones which were animated." It is possible that the rocking stones of the Druids may have been erected to perpetuate the same superstition.
361:2 Bryant, Anal. i. 60, and ii. 201.
362:1 Sale's Prelim. Disc. to the Koran, p. 156.
362:2 See Ch. iii. s. 2, "Ophiolatreia in Samothrace."
362:3 Pyramids were however, frequently used as sepulchres. The Mexican temples which were pyramidal, united both the templar and sepulchral character.
363:1 Jablonski Panth. Ægyp. Prolegom. 82.
366:1 See plate 1.
369:1 For a more detailed description, see Archæol. vol. xxv.
376:1 The following extract from Pepys's Diary, proves that the p. 377 sanctuary was perfect in 1688. "In the afternoon came to Abury, where seeing great stones like those of Stonehenge standing up, I stopped, and took a countryman of that town, and he carried me and showed me a place trenched in like Old Sarum almost, with great stones pitched in it, some bigger than those at Stonehenge in figure, to my great admiration: and he told me that most people of learning coming by do come and view them, and that the king (Charles II.) did so: . . . . . I gave this man one shilling. So took coach again, seeing one place with great high stones pitched round, which I believe was once a particular building in some measure like that of Stonehenge. But about a mile off, it was prodigious to see how full the downes are of great stones; and all along the valley stones of considerable bigness, most of them growing certainly out of the ground: which makes me think the less of the wonder of Stonehenge, for hence they might undoubtedly supply themselves with stones as well as those of Abury." Vol. iv. p. 131.
To a person acquainted with the localities of Abury, Kennet, and the Grey Wethers, it is needless to remark, that the "place with great high stones pitched round--like that of Stonehenge," which the traveller saw very soon after getting into his carriage, and about a mile before he reached "the stones in the valley," was the sanctuary upon Overton hill.
378:1 Stukeley, Abury, 32.
381:1 Sir. R. C. Hoare, Ancient North Wilts, p. 78.
383:1 See Mr. Aubrey's interesting account in Sir R. C. Hoare's "Ancient Wiltshire."
394:1 This theory was first suggested to me by my friend P. C. Delagarde, Esq. of Exeter: to whose kindness and ingenuity I am indebted for many improvements in this edition.
396:1 Hymn to Apollo, 294.
396:2 Ἀμφὶ δὲ νηὸν ἔνασσαν.
396:3 Πυθοῖ ἐνὶ πετρηέσσῃ. l. 390.
396:4 Olymp. Ode 6.
398:1 Ovid. Met. vii. 357.
399:1 Anal. ii. 471.
399:2 Scylax, Periplus. p. 9. cum notis Vossii.
400:1 This notion was derived from the serpentine figures of the temples themselves.
401:1 Anal. ii. 132.
402:1 Anal. ii. 141.
402:2 The real meaning of the word dracontium is, probably, "an avenue of the sun," as I have before stated.
402:3 Anal. ii. 148.
403:1 Paus. 570.
403:2 570.
403:3 Anal. ii. 135.
405:1 Bryant. Anal. ii. 105, &c.
405:2 Ibid. 142.
406:1 Bryant, Anal. ii, 208.
406:2 Ovid Met. 7.
407:1 Bryant, Anal. ii. 106.
409:1 Stukeley, Abury, 83.
410:1 See Bryant on the word "Amphi." Anal. i. 316.
410:2 Euseb. Præp. Evang. 109.
The same god, Apollo, was sometimes called OPHEL, which is nearly the same name, dropping only the syllable ON, which signifies the sun; for by this time the word EL had arrived at the same signification. EL means god, from the Hebrew אל; and when the sun came to be deified, he was naturally called EL, whence the Greeks obtained the word Ἥλιος, to denote "the sun."
APOLLO, then, being the SERPENT-SOLAR DEITY, his temples will be those in which we must look for the temples of THE SERPENT; for though in a few instances we may find the serpent adored alone, yet in no place shall we find a serpent-temple, in which the rites of the sun were not also partially celebrated.
1. Upon the introduction of images to express objects of worship, the solar deity was not unfrequently represented by conical stones in an upright position. These were called by the Greeks βαιτύλια--derived probably from the Hebrew, בית־אל, "the house," or "dwelling place of God." The earliest mention of such a stone occurs in Gen. xxviii, where Jacob erects one as a pillar, in remembrance of his celebrated dream, and, consecrating it to God, calls the name of the place Bethel. In process of time the stone itself was called Bethel, and similar pillars were hence named βαιτύλια, and supposed to be animated with the presence of the deity 1. The Ophites called them Abadir 2, from the name of the serpent-solar god: and they were conical, as representing a ray of the sun.
These conical pillars gave the first notion of an obelisk, which is a similar monument on a larger scale. The word obelisk, according to Bryant, is derived from OBEL, the name of the god to whom they were dedicated. This was hellenized into ὀβελίσκος. OBEL was the Apollo of Syria; and, probably, HELIOGABALUS was the same deity; for this god was represented by a black stone of conical form, which was said to have dropped from heaven, and was revered as an image of the sun, at Emesa.
In the Caaba of Mecca there is also a black stone, said to have fallen from heaven. The Mahometans generally hold it in great veneration 1. This was, probably, of the same kind as the Heliogabalus of Emesa--a probability which is strengthened by the name of the temple--Caaba: for this word may be a corruption of Ca-ab-ir, which means "the temple of ABIR," the solar serpent 2.
PYRAMIDS were obelisks of the most magnificent order; but it is supposed by Bryant that the obelisk originally represented the deity, of whom the pyramid, in times of improved architecture, was the temple 3. As the obelisk was an improvement upon the original Baitulia, it preserved the pointed form of these sacred stones in its apex--every obelisk terminating in a small pyramidal figure, which, like the Baitulia, was intended to be the representation of a sun's ray. The word pyramid itself means "a ray of the sun 1," from the Coptic Pi-ra-mu-e.
2. AN AGGREGATE of BAITULIA formed the first temples which were erected: and these temples were generally built in the figures of the hierograms of their respective gods. Thus the worshippers of the sun arranged their Baitulia in a circle, to represent the sun's disk. Many such temples are scattered through Europe, especially in Britain. Stonehenge is of this description; but from the transverse stones which rest upon the columns, and the evident signs of art and the chisel, this temple seems to be of a much more recent date than any other Druidical structure now extant. It is observable however that even in Stonehenge the upright columns are somewhat of the pyramidal figure--thus preserving the memory of their original consecration to the sun.
As the worshippers of the sun collected their Baitulia into circular, so the votaries of THE SERPENT formed theirs into a serpentine figure. Examples of this structure may be seen in several parts of England, but more especially at Carnac in Britany which is the most extensive and most remarkable relic of the Celtic religion in the world. Of this kind also was the Ophite temple described in Ovid, as passed by Medea in her flight from Attica to Colchis--
FACTAQUE DE SAXO LONGI SIMULACHRA DRACONIS. That the ancient Ophite temples were built of single and separate stones arranged after the manner of the avenues of Carnac is probable from the devices which appear on Tyrian coins, where a serpent is seen between two upright unhewn columns.
3. In process of time, however, the simple serpentine avenues underwent a great and elegant change. Instead of the solitary snake, moving in graceful sinuosities over hill and dale, or lying dormant in an uniform straight line, the serpent was made to wind his majestic form through the centre of a circle or globe. The sinuosities were still characteristically preserved, and the circular area as well as the serpentine avenues was still formed of the sacred Baitulia. The temple of Abury in Wiltshire was a beautiful specimen of this order of Ophite sanctuaries. This description of temple may, I conceive, have arisen from the union of the Solar and Ophite religions, after the suppression of the latter by the votaries of the former. The constant wars of the sun and serpent, and the general overthrow of the Ophite worship, have been alluded to in the course of this volume.
The worshippers of the Sun, being victorious, every where took possession of the Ophite temples. It is probable that in so doing, they did not at once destroy them: but building their own circular temples in the centre, formed the original serpent into avenues and approaches to the Sanctuary of the SUN. This compound temple was called a DRACONTIUM: from which is derived the nameidea of a DRAGON, which is a fabulous monster frequently mentioned but little understood by the poets who employed it to decorate a tale of wonder. "DRACONTIUM" has been ingeniously imagined by my friend the Rev. George Andrews, to be a derivation from דֶּרֶּך.־איֹן (Derech On)--"an avenue of On:" ON being the title of the SUN in Egypt and Phœnicia. This derivation is the most expressive that can be assigned, and accounts at once for the origin of the fabulous dragon, which is said to have been a large serpent peculiar totemples. Thus Servius in his Commentary on Virgil, defining the different kinds of serpents, says, "Angues aquarum, serpentes terrarum, DRACONES templorumt radition, and tradition preserved the memory of the fact. The word "Dracontium" as significant of a solar Ophite temple, would be readily adopted even by the Ophites themselves. For while the sun-worshippers understood by it "an avenue of the Sun," the serpent-worshippers would merge the circle in the avenues, and call the whole a DRAGON--A LARGE SERPENT. Hence the origin and the superstition of the DRAGON.
The DRACONTIA of the Solar-Ophites were of various forms, embracing every figure of the Ophite hierogram 1. Some were straight--others were formed by onetwo issuing serpents. Consider the more simple, before we describe the complex dracontium. I will therefore begin with the temple of
CARNAC. 1. The dracontium of Carnac is one of the most interesting remains of the Celtic religion. It is situated half a mile from the village of that name, in the department of the Morbihan in Britany; nine miles from the beautifully situated town of Auray, and approaches to within a mile of the Bay of Quiberon.
I visited this temple in the summer of 1831, and again in the spring of 1832. In my first visit I was accompanied by General de Penhouët, an antiquary highly esteemed in his native Britany, who had inquired deeply into the nature and figure of the temple. He pronounced it to be a Dracontium:--an opinion which has been confirmed by my subsequent survey of it made in company with Mr. Murray Vicars, a landsurveyor of Exeter; by whose exertions I have been furnished with a beautiful and accurate plan of the whole temple upon the scale of nine inches to a mile.
The temple known as "The Stones of Carnac," begins at the village of Erdeven, passes midway by Carnac, and terminates at a narrow part of the Marine lake of La Trinitè. The whole length of the temple, following its sinuosities, is eight miles. The average width from Erdeven to Lemaenac, is 200 feet; and from Lemaenac to the end, 350 feet. The highest stones are at Kerzerho, Lemaenac, Kermario, and Kerlescant; at which points they average from 15 to 17 feet high, and from 30 to 40 feet in circumference. The vacant spaces, noticed below, have been cleared to build the adjacent villages of Plouharnel and Carnac, and the numerous walls which intersect the country:--
From a to b the stones have been removed; from b to c they reappear.
From c to d there is a vacancy; from d to e a recovery.
From e to f no stones are visible; from f to g a few.
From g to h is a dreary waste; at h there may have been an area similar to Lemaenac; from h to k is a continuation of stones.
p. 369
From k to l is another vacancy; at l, m, n, o, are a few stones; the intermediate spaces void.
From Lemaenac to p is a beautiful continuation.
From p to q are only a few scattered stones. From q to r the parallelitha are preserved; from r to s broken.
From Kerlescant to the end the Dracontium is perfect 1.
The labour of its erection may be imagined from the fact, that it originally consisted of eleven rows of stones, about ten thousand in number, of which, more than three hundred averaged from fifteen to seventeen feet in height, and from sixteen to twenty or thirty feet in girth:--one stone even measuring forty-two feet in circumference.
From the accompanying plate it will be seen that the course of the avenues is sinuous, describing the figure of an enormous serpent moving over the ground. But this resemblance is more striking upon an actual inspection of the original. Then the alternations of the high and low stones, regularly disposed, mark with sufficient accuracy the swelling of the serpent's muscles as he moves along: and a spectator standing upon one of the Cromlech hills, round which the serpent sweeps, cannot but be struck by the evidence of design which appears in the construction of the avenues.
In the course of the Dracontium there are two regularly defined areas; one, near the village of Carnac, which is of the shape of a horse shoe, or a bell; the other towards the eastern extremity, which approaches the figure of a rude circle, being a parallelogram with rounded corners. There are appearances also, but too ill-defined to be noticed, of other areas of a similar description.
The circle and the horse shoe were both sacred figures in the Druidical religion, as may be seen in Stonehenge where they are united; the outer circles inclosing inner horse shoes. I cannot find any connection between the latter symbol and the tenets of the Celtic religion, unless it be intended as a representation of the moon. The torques (of which a splendid collection, twelve in number, and £1000 sterling in value in pure gold, was found in Britany in 1832,) were of the lunar form. And, perhaps, from this symbol (whatever it may have expressed) was derived the superstition so prevalent in Britain, of nailing a horse shoe over a door to scare away evil spirits, in the same manner as the sign of the cross is supposed to be efficacious by superstitious Roman Catholics. The worshippers of Carnac may, on this supposition, have been lunar Ophites; but this is mere conjecture.
It is curious, however, that at Erdeven, where the temple commences, an annual dance, describing the Ophite hierogram of the circle and serpent, is still kept up by the peasants at the Carnival. But the only tradition which I could find respecting the stones, was the universal superstition that they once possessed life, and were petrified as they stand. Some of the peasants believe that they were the Roman army who, pursued the centurion Cornelius on account of his conversion to Christianity; and were petrified through his prayers. Others imagine that certain supernatural dwarfs erected them in one night, and still inhabit, each the stone which he erected. Both these opinions have their remote origin in the animated Baitulia; and are paralleled by similar traditions in England, &c. respecting the Solar and Ophite temples.
Near that part of the dracontium which approaches Carnac is a singular mound of great elevation, which was once evidently conical--the upper portion of it being artificial. It is analogous to the remarkable hill of Silbury, which is similarly connected with the dracontium of Abury. These mounds were probably raised for the purpose of altars, upon which the perpetual fire kindled by the sun, was kept burning, in conformity with the rites of the Solar religion. They are very common in Persia, and may be alluded to in Scripture under the name of "the high places," upon which idolatry performed her rites. The conical mound near Carnac, which is so situated as to be seen for many miles, and from every part of the temple, has been consecrated by the Christians to the Archangel Michael: to whom also is sacred almost every natural or artificial cone in Britany. The reason of this dedication may be readily assigned. St. Michael is the destroyer of the spiritual dragon of the Apocalypse; whose mutilated image lies prostrate below the mound, and whose worshippers were converted to the faith of the triumphant religion, which, in token of its victory, erected upon the solar mount a chapel dedicated to the destroyer of "the apostate serpent." By this consecration then is indicated the triumph of Christianity over Ophiolatreia: and it is but consistent that the people who allegorized the conversion of the Ophites by the metaphor of a victory over serpents should, in token of this victory, erect upon the high places of idolatry, chapels to the Archangel, the enemy and the victor of the SERPENT-TEMPTER.
This mound may possibly have given name to the adjacent village which may be called Carn-ac, from "Cairn," a hill, and "hac," a snake. The "serpent's hill" would be an appropriate title for Mont St. Michel. In the same manner the collection of columns called Lemaenac, may have been named from maen, "stones," and "hac," a snake.
In illustration of the dracontium of Carnac may be adduced a small but interesting Ophite temple in the Ile aux Moines, in the Morbihan. The only part of this temple now perfect is the lunar or campanular area, corresponding to that in the dracontium of Carnac, which seems to have occupied the centre of the sanctuary. Some few of the stones which composed the avenues are standing, but very scattered. Many have been removed within the last twenty years to build walls and houses. At the southern extremity of the avenues the dracontium terminated in an oblong tumulus of considerable dimensions: one end of which being opened, has exposed to view a very beautiful Kistväen. There was also an obelisk at the head of the tumulus. But the most remarkable circumstance attending this tumulus is its name--it is called Pen-Ab--that is, "the head of AB," the sacred serpent Now, although this coincidence, without the knowledge of the temple's course, would prove little or nothing; yet combined with the fact, that parallel and sinuous avenues have once existed, running from Penab towards the middle of the island, and calling to mind the general custom of the ancient world which involved the name of the deity in that of the temple--we may fairly infer that this temple of the Ile aux Moines was a dracontium sacred to the Ophite deity AB.
The name of the island itself--"the Isle of the Monks," records probably some early establishment of Druids, the recollection of whom has been thus preserved.
There are, I believe, other dracontia in Britany and Gaul; but not having examined them personally, I pass on to those in our own country, which bear the most evident marks of their Ophite dedication.
2. The most remarkable dracontium in England is that of ABURY in Wiltshire, about five miles west of Marlborough, on the Bath road; over which thousands of travellers pass without dreaming that the ground upon which they tread was once esteemed the most holy in Britain. Of the temple of Abury an invaluable account has been left by the learned and ingenious Dr. Stukeley, in a volume replete with deep research and interesting facts. Having perused this volume with the attention which it demands, the reader should next have recourse to the splendid work of Sir Richard Colt Hoare on "the History of Ancient Wiltshire," in which he will discover ABURY AS IT IS, in the ruins of its magnificence. The theory of Stukeley is here sanctioned by an indisputable authority, and his errors corrected with a judicious hand.
The temple of Abury may be thus succinctly described:--From a circle of upright stones, (without imposts,) erected at equal distances, proceeded two avenues in a wavy course, in opposite directions. These were the fore and hinder parts of the serpent's body, and they emerged from the lower segment of the circle, through which the serpent appeared to be passing from west to east. Within this great circle were four others, considerably smaller, two and two, described about two centres, but neither of them coincident with the centre of the great circle. They lay in the line drawn from the north-west to the south-east points, passing through the centre of the great circle. The great outer circle surrounded the chief part of the village of Abury or Avebury; and was itself encompassed by a mound and moat. The head of the serpent was formed of two concentric ovals, and rested on an eminence called Overton Hill. This part of the temple, as long as it stood, was traditionally named in the neighbourhood, the sanctuary. It was destroyed 1 in the seventeenth century, through the rapacity of the farmers, who converted the stones into materials for building, and repairing the roads. Overton Hill, upon which the head of the serpent rested, is the southern promontory of the Hakpen hills; and Dr. Stukeley supposes, that from the serpent's head the range was so named; for Hakpen is a compound word, which, in the British language, bore that signification--Hak, a snake; and Pen, the head. This conjecture he illustrates by the pertinent remark, that to this day, in Yorkshire, the peasants call snakes, hags and hagworms 1."
The tail of the serpent terminated in a valley towards Beckhampton; and the whole figure was so contrived, as to have the appearance of a vast snake creeping over hill and dale. From the circle to the head, the avenue consisted of one hundred stones on each side. The head was composed of a double oval, the outer containing forty, and the inner eighteen, stones. The tail consisted likewise of one hundred stones on each side, and was, as well as the avenue to the head, a mile in length. The area enclosed by the circular rampart, which surrounds the great circle, is twenty-eight acres, seventeen perches, as measured by Sir R. C. Hoare.
Midway between the extremities of the two serpentine avenues, where a horizontal line, connecting them, would meet a perpendicular let fall from the centre of the great circle, is a remarkable, artificial, conical mound, called SILBURY HILL, of very great elevation. This is supposed, by Stukeley, to be a sepulchral monument; but Sir R. C. Hoare, with more probability, considers it to be a part of the temple. It is, doubtless, a mound dedicated to the solar deity, like the pyramids of ancient Greece and Egypt; and corresponds with the OPHELTIN of classical mythology, and the Mont St. Michel of Curiae. In connexion with the serpent-temple, it identifies the whole structure as sacred to the deity known by the Greeks as APOLLO. Its very name imports "the hill of the sun."
A more stupendous monument of heathen idolatry, than Abury, is not to be found in England. Many of the stones were remaining in their positions, when Stukeley surveyed the temple in 1723; but a great number were destroyed by the farmers in his time, and many more have been broken up, and carried away since. The work of devastation, it is to be feared, is not yet finished; such is the ignorance and barbarism of cupidity.
There are now remaining, of the serpentine figure, only eleven stones of the avenue between Abury and Kennet: that is, of the avenue which passing through West Kennet terminated in the serpent's head on Overton Hill. Marks in the ground contiguous to eight of these eleven stones, show the original position of four others, which have been taken away. So that from the turnpike gate at Avebury, to that point of the Bath road which passes through Kennet, the avenue may be traced without much difficulty. One very large stone stands near the entrance of the circle; and between two others the road passes as it approaches Kennet; the remaining eight, and the four vacant loci, are found together in a field on the right. The large stone by the circle, and the two which are nearest to the Bath road, are accurate guides to the eye in tracing the whole avenue.
Besides these, I observed (Sept. 3, 1829), four subverted stones in the descent and bottom of the hill beyond Kennet, to the south of the Bath road, at the point where the neck of the serpent is supposed to have risen on Overton Hill. These are, evidently, the remains of the avenue from Kennet to "the sanctuary." Of "the sanctuary" itself, not a single stone remains.
Of the Beckhampton avenue, only two stones retain their original position; and these are in the middle of the avenue 1. I had not time to look for the loci of the others; and I therefore refer the reader to the elaborate descriptions of Dr. Stukeley and Sir R. C. Hoare, with them lamenting, that in a country like this such barbarism should have been permitted as would disgrace the most uncivilized of the hordes of Tartary--destroying piecemeal, for the sake of a few tons of stone or a few yards of barren ground, one of the most interesting and venerable monuments of antiquity in the world.
Some of these stones, however, resisted the utmost efforts of the destroyers, who, unable to break, sunk them in the ground by digging pits about them. Two of these stones lie six feet under ground in the premises of Mr. Butler, the landlord of the Kennet Inn, and over another the Bath road passes.
In the time of Dr. Stukeley, the peasants of the neighbourhood had a tradition that "no snakes could live within the circle of Abury." This notion may have descended from the times of the Druids, through a very natural superstition that the unhallowed reptile was divinely restrained from entering the sanctuary, through which the mystic serpent passed.
There have been found at Abury the usual Druidical relics of Celts, Anguina, &c.: and a proof that this was once a temple of very great resort, is afforded by the immense quantities of burnt bones, horns of oxen, and charcoal which have been discovered in the agger of the vallum. These are indications of great sacrifices. Dr. Stukeley was doubtful of the derivation of the word ABURY; but I think that a probable solution may be found in the compound titleאוב־אור serpens solis, for here are all the data required. The temple was the Ophite hierogram; the officiating priests were Druids, whose religion recognised the sun as a deity, and the serpent as a sacred emblem; the name of that mystic serpent was Aub, and a title of the solar deity, Aur or Ur: the whole temple represented the union of the serpentine with the circular sanctuaries, that is, of the temples of the Ophite and British Dracontia Solar superstition. What name then could be more expressive than AUBUR, or ABUR, "the serpent of the sun?" The present name of the village is Avebury, which the first describer of the temple (Mr. Aubrey, who lived in the seventeenth century) says, should have been written Aubury; and this reading he found in the legierbook of Malmesbury Abbey 1.
3. STANTON DREW. The second British dracontium in order of beauty, is that of Stanton Drew, in Somersetshire. It is situated near the village of Pensford, about five miles west of Bristol.
This temple, which is much dilapidated, originally consisted of one large circle connected by avenues with two smaller; and thus described the second order of the Ophite hierogram--the circle and two serpents. In Egyptian hieroglyphics, when two serpents are seen in connection, one typifies the Good and the other the Evil Principle. For the first knowledge of this temple as a dracontium, we are indebted to Sir Richard Colt Hoare. I visited it in 1831, and made the following observations.
The great circle is at present contained by only thirteen stones, and these are generally small, and much worn by the weather. It is probable that the original number was thirty. The dimensions of this circle or rather oval, are 126 yards by 115.
A small circle of eight stones, 32 feet in diameter, was connected with its eastern limb by an avenue of, perhaps, twenty stones. The length of this avenue is about 100 yards, and it is remarkable for its very great curvature, returning at a sharp angle towards the large circle, as if to represent a snake throwing back his head. Only ten stones of this avenue remain. The western circle is at the distance of 150 yards; and consisted of ten or twelve stones. Its diameter is forty-three yards, but I could trace no avenue between it and the oval. The ground is much broken in this part. A wall intersects it, and a road to a farm-yard passes through it. So that the removal of the stones may be accounted for without difficulty. I have no doubt whatever that an avenue connecting this smaller circle with the great one, once existed for analogy is in favour of the hypothesis, although no traces of the avenue remain.
I am confirmed in my opinion by a tradition of the neighbourhood, which almost universally accompanies Ophite temples. By this it appears that Keyna, the daughter of a Welsh prince, who lived in the fifth century, having left her country and crossed the Severn for the purpose of finding some secluded spot, where she might devote herself, without interruption, to religious contemplations, arrived in the neighbourhood of Stanton Drew. She requested permission from the prince of the country, to fix her residence at Keynsham, which was then an uncleared wood. The prince replied, that he would readily give the permission required; but it was impossible for any one to live in that place on account of the serpents, of the most venomous species, which infested it. Keyna, however, confident in her saintly gifts, accepted the permission, notwithstanding the warning: and taking possession of the wood, "converted by her prayers all the snakes and vipers of the place into stones. And to this day," remarks Capgrave, the recorder of the legend, "the stones in that country resemble the windings of serpents, through all the fields and villages, as if they had been so formed by the hand of the engraver."
The transformation of the serpents into stone is the fable which almost always denotes the neighbourhood of a Dracontium, as we may see in the legend of Cadmus and Harmonia, Python, and others. The remark of Capgrave may allude to the anguina, or serpent-stones, so often found in the vicinity of Druidical temples: or even to the specimens of the Cornua Ammonis, which I believe are sometimes found in the neighbourhood.
4. DARTMOOR. At Merivale bridge on Dartmoor, four miles from Tavistock, is an interesting group of temples, two of the dracontian, and two of the circular kind. The temples on Dartmoor are usually in pairs. Whenever these are circles we may suppose that one of them was sacred to the sun, and the other to the moon, like the double circles within the great circular area of Abury. At Merivale, the four temples are within a few yards of each other; and though small, are tolerably perfect--one of the circles only being destroyed.
The avenues, which are straight, run parallel to each other, east and west. They are 105 feet apart, the longer is 1143 feet in length: the shorter 792. The larger of these temples is of the same order as that of Stanton Drew, having a central circle, and two avenues, each terminated by a circle. These avenues are straight: but this makes no difference of moment from the theory of serpent temples; for they are equally Dracontia, i.e. "Avenues of the sun." The second temple has but one circle, which is at the head, and corresponds to the Celtic temple of Callernish, in the island of Lewis; but the latter is far more magnificent. Dr. Stukeley pronounced Callernish to be a Dracontium; but from the descriptions of it by Dr. Borlase and others, it can only be considered such, if that title be extended to straight avenues, as well as those which are sinuous.
Of this rectilinear order there are other Dracontia on Dartmoor, although not so extensive as those of Merivale. On the brook side below Black Tor, are two avenues parallel to each other, and running east and west; one of which may be traced for 300 feet, and the other for 180 feet. They are forty feet apart, and each is terminated by a circle thirty feet in diameter enclosing a cairn. The stones average the same height as those at Merivale, being from three to four feet in elevation.
Similar avenues, but running north and south, occur on Gidleigh common, of which the stones are three feet and a half high and triangular. They may be traced for 432 and 120 feet respectively.
Other monuments of the same nature are scattered over Dartmoor, which from the multitude of such and similar British remains must at one time have been very thickly inhabited. Vestiges of circular huts are not unfrequently seen on the sides of hills, now seldom pressed by the foot of man, and are melancholy memorials of unknown ages, nameless tribes, and generations long since mingled with the dust. It is probable that the early inhabitants of Dartmoor, were driven into these bleak and barren regions from pleasanter and more fertile lands by the pressure of the Romans, Saxons and Danes: and that the parallelitha and circles above described were built in humble imitation of more splendid temples in the lower country. All the works on Dartmoor are those of a feeble and impoverished people, but amply illustrative of the religion which they exercised in happier times.
5. SHAP. The longest dracontium in Britain, and the only one that in extent could compete with Carnac, was at Shap in Westmorland. The stones were, however, small as compared with those of Abury; the largest now remaining, measures only eight feet in height. The temple of Shap begins at about half a mile south of the village of that name, in a field adjoining the Kendal road; and from this point proceeds in a northerly course, crossing the road near Shap in two rows. The greatest width of the avenue is at the head in the field above mentioned, and measures eighty-eight feet. At this extremity it is bounded by a slightly curved line of six stones placed at irregular intervals; but they appear to have been never erected. Near Shap the two rows converge to the width of fifty-nine feet, and again separating, but not so much as to destroy the appearance of parallelism, proceed in a northerly direction, in which course they may be traced at intervals for a mile and a half. The avenue throughout preserves the sinuosities of the serpent-temple.
Although scarcely two miles of the temple are now recoverable, yet tradition states it once extended to Moor Dovey, a distance of seven miles from Shap! In this respect it almost rivals the celebrated Carnac, which can only be traced for eight miles; but in the number and magnitude of its columns, it must have fallen very short of the grandeur of that magnificent dracontium. Indeed nothing in Britain can compete with this pride of Britany. All our parallelitha contain but two rows of stones, whereas the temple of Carnac has eleven!
About a mile to the N. E. of Shap is a circle composed of large stones, in tolerable preservation; but whether it was connected with the parallelithon or not, I am unable to determine. The probability of the connection is however great; but I fear the temple is in too dilapidated a state to solve this question.
Dr. Stukeley, who also saw, but did not survey the temple of Shap, pronounced it at once to be a dracontium. The indications must, at that time, (one hundred years since,) have been much stronger than they are now. A traveller in these days would hardly notice the few stones which lie by the side of the Kendal road. Dr. Stukeley, in a letter to an eminent antiquary of his day, mentions with approbation a plan of the temple of Shap as drawn by a gentleman of Carlisle; but I have not been able to find this document, which now that the dracontium is nearly destroyed, would be almost invaluable.
II. The above are the principal known dracontia in Europe. Many more may be perhaps discovered upon diligent inquiry. Parallelitha, as such, have been seen by thousands of travellers. The majority have looked, and passed on with indifference: better informed persons have considered them as merely relics of the Druidical superstition; and the covetous farmer has converted, with a ruthless hand, their venerable columns into materials for building walls or repairing houses! But a more enlightened age may even yet rescue from annihilation monuments which have been at once the work and the admiration of ages. The light which has been thrown upon remote antiquity by these venerable ruins is too strong to be extinguished. It is like their own perpetual fire, which, though quenched upon Silbury and Mount St. Michael, still burns in the rites of the ceremonial religion which, at the ashes of Baal, has kindled the tapers of the Church of Rome.
Among the interesting discoveries which result from the theory of dracontia, is the view which it developes of the origin of columnar architecture. We admire the beauties and the grandeur of the Parthenon: we gaze with rapture on the isolated pillars of exquisite workmanship, which standing upon the barren and desolated plains of Greece or Asia Minor, fill us alternately with admiration of the art which executed, and indignation at the barbarism which defaced them. But we little think that in the rude and rugged columns of Abury, or Carnac, we see a prototype of the most admired pillars of the most splendid temples of ancient Greece or Asia! And yet there can be little doubt but that such is the fact.
The temples of the sun at Palmyra and Geraza, both in the country formerly devoted to the worship of OUB, the serpent god of Canaan, are illustrations in point. An examination of their columns, which supported no roof will justify the inference that they were substituted for those of some ancient dracontia occupying the same sites. The avenues of Palmyra particularly illustrate this theory by their sinuous course, although sinuosity as we have before observed, is not indispensably necessary to a dracontium, several (such as Callernish and the temples on Dartmoor) being straight. The majority of serpent temples were however sinuous; and such was the temple of the sun at Palmyra. A long avenue of two double rows of columns connected the portal with the sanctuary, which was in the shape of a parallelogram.
The sanctuary of Geraza was formed by a circle of columns, connected like those of Stonehenge by transverse stones resting upon their summits. A straight avenue of two rows led to this circle, and threw out near it two arms of a cross. The plan of the temple is almost a facsimile of the dracontium of Callernish; while the resemblance of its circle to the outer one of Stonehenge would almost persuade us that the architects of the one had either had communication with those of the other, or had copied their design.
Nothing is more probable than that the first step in templar architecture being to group together the isolated baitulia, the second would be to polish and carve the columns already existing in a rude state; or to substitute for them others of a more finished kind. Thus, by degrees, the rough "petræ ambrosiæ" of Greece or Canaan would be fashioned into the elegance of the Parthenon, or of the temple of the sun at Palmyra. And although the one had no avenues, and the other no circle, yet both being columnar, may be referred for their origin to the same standard of early architecture, the dracontium: for the varieties of the dracontium include every figure of the classical temple. The dracontium had its avenues, straight and sinuous; its circles; its lunes; its ovals, and its parallelograms. Merivale, Abury, and Carnac, exemplify them all.
Many may deem these notions crude and extravagant; but I confess that the impression which they leave upon my mind is great; neither can I consent to efface it until other explanations, more satisfactory than any hitherto advanced, supply me with a better theory 1.
III. Another discovery still more interesting and useful arises from the doctrine of dracontia. By this may be obtained a key to the many absurd and incredible histories of Pagan mythology respecting enormous serpents and dragons
covering acres of ground; which could have been nothing but vast dracontia. Dr. Stukeley, the inventor of the theory, has himself applied it to this purpose; and as a few more cases may be adduced in corroboration of his opinion, I will add them. The facts are curious; but the principle upon which this treatise was undertaken, is altogether independent of their probability, although it may be greatly illustrated by it. For the universal prevalence of the worship of the serpent, which it was my object to prove, has, I trust, been satisfactorily shown.
It is remarked by Stukeley, that the celebrated PYTHON was, originally, nothing more nor less than a serpentine temple, like that of Abury. Python is described by Ovid (Met. i. 459,) as covering several acres,--"tot jugera ventre prementem." Of the same kind, Dr. Stukeley thinks, was the TITYUS of Virgil, who covered nine acres of ground.
----------"Per tota novem cui jugera corpus
Porrigitur."
Æneid, vi. 596. [paragraph continues] In corroboration of the first of these opinions we may observe that Homer describes Apollo as building a temple 1 on the spot where he had slain Python. The stones of which it was composed were "broad and very long." He was assisted by Trophonius, who laid "the threshold-stone;" and a multitude of labourers built the temple . Its figure was circular in this part; for such I take to be the meaning of the word Ἀμφὶ, in the line which describes the labour 2. For it can hardly mean that they built the temple "round" the "threshold." This, then, was the sanctum, and may have corresponded with the great circle of Abury.
The description of the building here ceases; and the confused legend makes a transition from the temple to the serpent who was slain there by Apollo, and at his command putrefied upon the spot by the sun. But in a few lines afterwards Apollo is described as meditating what sort of men he shall put as priests into his "STONY PYTHO 3." By the same epithet he describes Pytho in other parts of his works; and Pinder 4 makes use of the same designation. It is true
that this epithet may allude only to the rocky nature of the soil; but it may allude also to the stones of the temple, and would be employed probably for that purpose, on the supposition that the temple was of the serpentine kind. There is something remarkable in the circumstance that Trophonius should be concerned in laying the chief stone; and though Agamedes is joined with him in the office, yet Trophonius is, assuredly, not a builder of the temple, but the temple itself. For we have already seen that TROPHONIUS is no other than TOR-OPH-ON, "the temple of the solar serpent." Here then we have the serpent again! and putting all these detached facts together, making also due allowance for poetical imagery and mythological exaggeration, we may, not unreasonably, conclude, that the whole history relates to the erection of a SERPENT-TEMPLE, like that of Abury.
If Ovid, in describing Python, alludes to the serpentine figure of the temple, he comes nearer to facts when he represents serpents changed into stone. (Met. xi. 56: xii. 23.)
In these instances of metamorphosis, the coincident features of the story indicate Ophiolatreia. Thus Apollo is the person who petrifies the Lesbian dragon (Met. xi.); and the scene of the second story is Bœotia, a country where serpent-worship was peculiarly prevalent.
But the poet comes still more closely to the mark, when he describes the flight of Medea from Attica to Colchis. Her chariot was drawn by dragons, and she was passing from one Ophite colony to another. In her passage,
"Æoliam Pitanem lævâ de parte reliquit,
FACTAQUE DE SAXO LONGI SIMULACHRA DRACONIS 1." When we consider that the word Pitane may be immediately derived from פתן, serpens, we have a presumptive evidence that the serpent was worshipped there: and the above lines from Ovid, corroborating the conjecture, describe the temple; which was, in truth, LONGI SIMULACHRA DRACONIS. Had the poet intended to describe Abury or Carnac, he could not have represented them more accurately.
Dr. Stukeley thinks that the fable of Cadmus, "sowing serpents' teeth," alluded to "his building a serpentine temple:" which is not unlikely: for under such an imagery might the stones of the temple be poetically described, the order of teeth being that in which such stones were erected, single and upright, at equal distances.
Cadmus and Harmonia were changed into serpents at Enchelia, in Illyria, where "stones and a temple" were erected to their memory. Scylax Caryandensis, cited by Bryant 1, says,
Κάδμου καὶ Ἁρμονίας οἱ λίθοι εἰσὶν ἐνταῦθα, καὶ ἱερόν The situation of this temple is "half a day's sail from the river Arion 2." No such river occurs in the maps of the country; and Vossius corrects it into "Drylo:" but Scylax, who notices so few things, and only the most remarkable, in his brief memoranda, could hardly have been mistaken in so important a matter as the name of a river. The temple was Ophite; and it is very probable that the nearest river would be sacred to the solar deity. For "Arion" compounds the two titles of the sun, Ault and ON.
"The temple," observes Bryant, "was an Ophite Petra, which induced people to believe that there were in these temples serpents petrified 1. It is possible that in later times the deity may have been worshipped under this form; whence it might be truly said of Cadmus and Harmonia, that they would one day be exhibited in stone." Bryant here refers to Nonnus Dionusiac. l. xliv. p. 1144, who says of Cadmus and Harmonia,
Λαϊνέην ἤμελλον ἔχειν ὀφιώδεα μορφήν. This line, however, I cannot find in Nonnus: but one not much unlike it occurs in lib. xliv. line 367, of that writer:
--------οἷς Χρόνος ἕρπων
Ὤπασε πετρήεσσαν ἔχειν ὀφιώδεα μορφήν In which the allusion to the serpentine form of the temple appears evident. The conversion of temples into gods is of common occurrence in mythology; and I have no doubt but that the line from Nonnus, above cited, describes the figure of the λίθοι καὶ ἱερὸν, remarked by Scylax. Bryant seems to think that "the stones" sacred to Cadmus and Harmonia were merely stylæ--commemorative pillars; and consequently introduces the word "two" into his translation, which is not in the original. The words of Scylax are, "Here are the stones and temple of Cadmus and Harmonia." From which it does not necessarily appear that "the stones" and "the temple" were not identical. I believe they were; and that they constituted a serpent-temple like Abury: or, as Bryant elsewhere employs the word, A DRACONTIUM.
For the origin of this word, "dracontium," he adduces a derivation by no means indicative of his usual penetration. Thus he tells us, that "toward each extremity of the oval temples of the Phœnicians were erected mounds, on which were towers. These towers were generally royal edifices, and at the same time held sacred. They were termed Tarchon, like Tarchonium in Hetruria, which, by a corruption, was in latter times rendered Trachon . . . . . . . The term Trachon seems to have been still further sophisticated by the Greeks, and expressed Δράκων 1." . . . . . . . . "When the Greeks understood that in these temples the people worshipped a serpent deity, they concluded that Trachon was a serpent; and hence came the name of DRACO to be appropriated to such an animal 1."
How much more simple and probable is the inference of Dr. Stukeley, who reasons from a fact? Verbal coincidences can never be put in competition with historical facts; but in the case before us, these coincidences are strained, and the fact of the existence of a serpentine temple at Abury placed beyond all doubt 2. This error of Bryant leads him into another, when he talks about the "windows 3" of a dracontium. We should be startled at a theory founded upon the windows of Abury, or Stonehenge.
That the conjecture of Bryant, in deriving the legends of the mythological dragons from the word Tarchon, is inadmissible, appears again by an extract from Pausanias, which (curiously enough) he himself quotes to corroborate his position, whereas it tends directly to confirm that of Stukeley. In the road between Thebes and Glisas, you may see a place encircled by select stones, which the Thebans call THE SERPENT'S HEAD 1."
Dr. Stukeley also cites this remarkable passage, to illustrate his observations upon the. HEAD of the Abury serpent, which rested upon a promontory, called, in like manner, SNAKES-HEAD. (Hakpen.) This was also "a place encircled by select stones." And to complete the resemblance, there is near this Theban temple, a lofty hill corresponding to Silbury, upon which a temple was erected to Jupiter 2.
But, though the premises of Bryant were conjectural, his conclusions were for the most part correct, and his illustrations ingenious. I proceed to subjoin some of them as equally applicable to our theory.
"Iphicrates related that in Mauritania there were dragons of such extent that grass grew upon their backs. What can be meant under this representation but a dracontium, within whose precincts they encouraged verdure 3?"
Again: "It is said (by Maximus Tyrius, Dissert. 8, c. vi. p. 85,) that Taxiles, a mighty prince of India, carried Alexander the Great to see a dragon, which was sacred to Dionusus, and itself esteemed a god. It was of a stupendous size, being in extent equal to five acres, and resided in a low, deep place, walled round to a great height. The Indians offered sacrifices to it, and it was daily fed by them from their flocks and herds." . . . . "Two dragons of the like nature are mentioned by Strabo, (lib. xv. p. 1022) which are said to have resided in the mountains of Abisares, in India; the one was eighty cubits in length, the other one hundred and forty. Similar to the above, is the account given by Posidonius of a serpent which he saw in the plains of Macra in Syria . . . . He says that it was about an acre in length, and of a thickness so remarkable, that two persons on horseback, when they rode on opposite sides, could not see one another. Each scale was as big as a shield, and a man might ride in at its mouth. What can this description allude to," says Bryant, "but the ruins of an Ophite temple, which is represented in this enigmatical mariner to raise admiration? The plains of Macra were not far from Lebanon and Hermon, where the Hivites resided, and where serpent-worship particularly prevailed. The Indian
dragon above mentioned seems to have been of the same nature. It was, probably, a temple and its environs, where a society of priests resided, who were maintained by the public, and who worshipped the deity under the semblance of a serpent 1."
Besides these Ophite temples, Bryant discovered a legend of two others in the neighbourhood of Damascus 2. These dragons, according to Nonnus, were overcome by the hero Damascenus, an earthborn giant. "One of the monsters with which he fought is described of an enormous size--a serpent, in extent of fifty acres: which certainly must have a reference to the grove and garden, wherein such Ophite temple stood, at Damascus. For the general measurement of these wonderful beings by acres, proves that such an estimate could not relate to any thing of solid contents, but to an inclosure of that superficies."
The dragon of Colchos, which guarded the golden fleece, is also considered by Bryant to have been a dracontic temple. There was a settlement of Ophites in Colchis, which is indicated by the name of the river Ophis. This river was so named from a body of people, who settled upon its banks, and were said to be con-ducted by a serpent 1.
An attentive perusal of Diodorus Siculus, lib. iv. s. 47, will perhaps incline the reader to acquiesce in the conclusion of Bryant respecting the Colchian dragon. Diodorus himself resolves the legend into a story about a temple, where the treasure, the golden fleece, was kept under the guardianship of Tauric soldiers. These, he contends, were the bulls, who were associated with the dragon in guarding the treasure. The dragon was their commander, an officer named Draco. The legend is, that the golden fleece deposited there by Phryxus, was guarded by a sleepless dragon; and bulls, breathing fire from their nostrils, lay by the altar of the temple. Jason, having first subdued the bulls, compelled them to the yoke, and ploughed up the ground; in which, like Cadmus, he sowed serpents' teeth. These teeth, becoming animated in the form of armed men, fought together and destroyed one another. He then lulled the dragon, and bore away the fleece 2.
The explanation of Diodorus is simple, and in default of a better, not unreasonable. But the word "Tor," which he supposes to have been misunderstood for "bulls," when in reality it alluded to men who came from Taurica, is much more likely to have been the Chaldee טור, a tower, mistaken by Greeks, who were ignorant of the language of the country, for תור, a bull. Hence the whole error. The "bulls" were towers--perhaps fortified lighthouses; and the light which burned in them gave occasion to the fable of "fire breathing bulls 1."
Having resolved the "bulls" into "towers," we may reasonably conjecture that the "dragon" was stone. The temple will thus become a dracontium. This dracontium was stormed by Jason, who, having first taken the towers which protected the temple, moved against the latter, compelling the garrisons of the former into his service: and having by some stratagem--perhaps a nocturnal assault--set the defenders of the dracontium against each other, succeeded in his enterprise of plundering it of the treasure. The sowing of the serpents' teeth, I conceive to be an expression which has crept into the fable, from a confused recollection of the figure of the temple, and the manner of its formation, by upright, equidistant stones. This incident, so violently and uselessly introduced, seems an index to the whole fable, and identifies it as relating to the plundering of a dracontium.
In turning over the pages of Pausanias and Strabo, we frequently meet with passages which may naturally be interpreted into descriptions of Ophite temples. Thus near the river Chimarrus in Argolis was a circular inclosure "marking the spot where Pluto descended into Tartarus with Proserpine." This legend indicates the temple to be a dracontium of which the central circle only remained. Other temples occur which might admit the same inference; but they are for the most part too obscurely described to adduce as illustrations. I cannot, however, pass by, without a remark, "the stones of Amphion," mentioned by Pausanias, (568,) because the legend attached to them corresponds with a tradition very common in England, respecting the circular, druidical temples:--"The stones which lie near the tomb of Amphion (in Bœotia) are rude and not laboured by art. They say that they were the stones which followed the music of Amphion."
A similar fable is related of Orpheus, who, it will be remembered, was the high priest of Ophiolatreia in Thrace.
Respecting the druidical circles, it was a common tradition that the stones which composed them were once animated beings, and petrified in the mazes of a dance. Thus Stonehenge was called "the dance of the giants;" and Rowldrich, a Druids' temple, near Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire, is supposed to have been a king and his nobles similarly metamorphosed. The same is reported of Stanton Drew, in Somersetshire, which is vulgarly called "the weddings;" being supposed to have been a company of friends at a nuptial festival, who were petrified in the midst of a dance.
Another Druids' temple, in Cumberland, is called "Long Meg and her daughters" from a similar tradition 1.
if these coincidences prove nothing else, they prove that "the stones of Amphion," and "Orpheus," were circular temples of the druidical structure. The stones of Amphion were probably a temple of the sun; "AMPHION" being
nothing more than AM-PHI-ON 1, "the oracle of Ham the sun:" and ORPHEUS itself may be resolved into a similar meaning--OR-PHI, "solis oraculum."
The frequent mention of the serpent-deity Ops, in connexion with STONES, is a remarkable feature in remote mythology. It was OPS who deceived Saturn with the stone Abadir; and "the heathen philosophers explained OPS as the divine power pervading mountains and stony places 2." Might not this connexion have arisen from the peculiar construction of the Ophite temples?
These circumstances may appear trivial; but trifles not unfrequently lead to important results. In every walk of science, a trifle, disregarded by incurious thousands, has repaid the inquisitiveness of a single observer with unhoped-for knowledge. And what has been in science, may be in history. Little events, and accidental allusions, in themselves insignificant, may form a link in the chain of obscure mythology, which shall act as a conductor to scriptural truth.
Footnotes 359:1 Ἀπόλλων may be decomposed into AP, or AB, serpent; EL, deus; and ON, sol: so that serpens-deus-sol is the name of the deity, whose other title, PHŒBUS, (Phi-oub) denotes the oracular serpent.
361:1 See Bochart. Geog. Sacr. 1. i. p. 38; also Maurice, Ind. Antiq. ii. 347. Sanchoniathon in his Cosmogony has the following passage: "Moreover they say that the god Ouranus invented the Baitulia, having made stones which were animated." It is possible that the rocking stones of the Druids may have been erected to perpetuate the same superstition.
361:2 Bryant, Anal. i. 60, and ii. 201.
362:1 Sale's Prelim. Disc. to the Koran, p. 156.
362:2 See Ch. iii. s. 2, "Ophiolatreia in Samothrace."
362:3 Pyramids were however, frequently used as sepulchres. The Mexican temples which were pyramidal, united both the templar and sepulchral character.
363:1 Jablonski Panth. Ægyp. Prolegom. 82.
366:1 See plate 1.
369:1 For a more detailed description, see Archæol. vol. xxv.
376:1 The following extract from Pepys's Diary, proves that the p. 377 sanctuary was perfect in 1688. "In the afternoon came to Abury, where seeing great stones like those of Stonehenge standing up, I stopped, and took a countryman of that town, and he carried me and showed me a place trenched in like Old Sarum almost, with great stones pitched in it, some bigger than those at Stonehenge in figure, to my great admiration: and he told me that most people of learning coming by do come and view them, and that the king (Charles II.) did so: . . . . . I gave this man one shilling. So took coach again, seeing one place with great high stones pitched round, which I believe was once a particular building in some measure like that of Stonehenge. But about a mile off, it was prodigious to see how full the downes are of great stones; and all along the valley stones of considerable bigness, most of them growing certainly out of the ground: which makes me think the less of the wonder of Stonehenge, for hence they might undoubtedly supply themselves with stones as well as those of Abury." Vol. iv. p. 131.
To a person acquainted with the localities of Abury, Kennet, and the Grey Wethers, it is needless to remark, that the "place with great high stones pitched round--like that of Stonehenge," which the traveller saw very soon after getting into his carriage, and about a mile before he reached "the stones in the valley," was the sanctuary upon Overton hill.
378:1 Stukeley, Abury, 32.
381:1 Sir. R. C. Hoare, Ancient North Wilts, p. 78.
383:1 See Mr. Aubrey's interesting account in Sir R. C. Hoare's "Ancient Wiltshire."
394:1 This theory was first suggested to me by my friend P. C. Delagarde, Esq. of Exeter: to whose kindness and ingenuity I am indebted for many improvements in this edition.
396:1 Hymn to Apollo, 294.
396:2 Ἀμφὶ δὲ νηὸν ἔνασσαν.
396:3 Πυθοῖ ἐνὶ πετρηέσσῃ. l. 390.
396:4 Olymp. Ode 6.
398:1 Ovid. Met. vii. 357.
399:1 Anal. ii. 471.
399:2 Scylax, Periplus. p. 9. cum notis Vossii.
400:1 This notion was derived from the serpentine figures of the temples themselves.
401:1 Anal. ii. 132.
402:1 Anal. ii. 141.
402:2 The real meaning of the word dracontium is, probably, "an avenue of the sun," as I have before stated.
402:3 Anal. ii. 148.
403:1 Paus. 570.
403:2 570.
403:3 Anal. ii. 135.
405:1 Bryant. Anal. ii. 105, &c.
405:2 Ibid. 142.
406:1 Bryant, Anal. ii, 208.
406:2 Ovid Met. 7.
407:1 Bryant, Anal. ii. 106.
409:1 Stukeley, Abury, 83.
410:1 See Bryant on the word "Amphi." Anal. i. 316.
410:2 Euseb. Præp. Evang. 109.
Summary
SUMMARY.
I. IN the preceding pages we have traced THE WORSHIP OF THE SERPENT from Babylonia, east and west, through Persia, Hindûstan, China, Mexico, Britain, Scandinavia, Italy, Illyricum, Thrace, Greece, Asia Minor, and Phœnicia. Again, we have observed the same idolatry prevailing north and south, through Scythia on the one hand, and Africa
on the other. THE WORSHIP OF THE SERPENT WAS, THEREFORE, UNIVERSAL. For
not only did the sacred serpent enter into the symbolical and ritual
service of every religion which recognised THE SUN; but we even find him
in countries where solar worship was altogether unknown--as in Sarmatia, Scandinavia, and the Gold Coast of Africa. In every known country of the ancient world the
serpent formed a prominent feature in the ordinary worship, and made no
inconsiderable figure in their Hagiographa, entering alike into
legendary and astronomical mythology.
Whence, then, did this ONLY-UNIVERSAL IDOLATRY originate? That it preceded POLYTHEISM, is indicated by the attribution of the title OPS, and the consecration of the symbolical serpent to so many of the heathen deities. The title Ors was conferred upon Terra, Vesta, Rhea, Cybele, Juno, Diana--and even Vulcan is called by Cicero, Opas 1.
In Grecian mythology, the symbolical serpent was sacred to Saturn, Jupiter, Apollo, Bacchus, Mars, Æsculapius, Rhea, Juno, Minerva, Diana, Ceres, and Proserpine--that is, the serpent was a sacred emblem of nearly all the gods and goddesses 2.
The same remark may be extended to the Theogonies of Egypt, Hindûstan, and Mexico--in all of which we find the serpent emblematic, not of one deity, but of many. What then, is the inference?--That the serpent was the most ancient of the heathen gods; and that as his attributes were multiplied by superstitious devotion, new names were invented to represent the new personifications which, in the progress of time, dividing the unity, destroyed the integrity of the original worship. Yet each of these schismatic superstitions bore some faint trace of its dracontic origin, in retaining the symbolical serpent. Some of these deifications may be easily traced, though others are obscure and difficult.
The mystic serpent entered into the mythology of every nation; consecrated almost every temple; symbolized almost every deity; was imagined in the heavens, stamped upon the earth, and ruled in the realms of everlasting sorrow. His subtilty raised him into an emblem of wisdom; he was therefore pictured upon the aegis of Minerva, and crowned her helmet. The knowledge of futurity which he displayed in Paradise exalted him into a symbol of vaticination; he was therefore oracular, and reigned at Delphi. The "opening of the eyes" of our deluded first parents obtained him an altar in the temple of the god of healing; he is therefore the constant companion of Æsculapius. In the distribution of his qualities the genius of mythology did not even gloss over his malignant attributes. The fascination with which he intoxicated the souls of the first sinners, depriving them at once of purity and immortality, of the image of God and of the life of angels, was symbolically remembered and fatally celebrated in the orgies of Bacchus, where serpents crowned the heads of the Bacchantes, and the "Poculum Boni Dæmonis" circulated under the auspices of the Ophite hierogram chased upon its rim 1. But the most remarkable remembrance of the power of the paradisiacal serpent is displayed in the position which he retains in Tartarus. A cunodracontic Cerberus guards the gates; serpents are coiled upon the chariot wheels of Proserpine; serpents pave the abyss of torment; and even serpents constitute the caduceus of Mercury, the talisman which he holds when he conveys the soul to Tartarus. The image of the serpent is stamped upon every mythological fable connected with the realms of Pluto. Is it not then probable, that in the universal symbol of heathen idolatry we recognize the universal object of primitive worship--THE SERPENT OF PARADISE.
But this inference depends not on mere symbolical worship: for we trace the sacred serpent, by the lamp of tradition, through the waters of the deluge to the world which they overwhelmed. In the mythological systems of Hindûstan and Egypt, we find him, as THE CAUSE of that awful calamity, moving in the waters, and troubling the deep: and a Brahminical legend indicates his existence even before that visitation. In the channel of the river Ganges, in the province of Bahar, is a remarkable rock, upon which is sculptured a figure of Veshnu reposing upon a serpent. This serpent is fabled to have been the goddess DEVI or ISI, who assumed the form to carry Veshnu over the deluge. The sleep of Veshnu indicates the period between the two worlds 1. May we not then infer that this legend alludes to the existence of the sacred serpent in the world before the flood? And further, is it not probable, since this sacred serpent is confounded with ISI, (the Isis of Egypt--the Eve of Scripture 1), that the tradition recognises THE SERPENT OF PARADISE?
The only worship which can vie with that of the serpent in antiquity or universality, is the adoration of the SUN. But uniformly with the progress of the solar superstition, has advanced the sacred serpent from Babylon to Peru. If the worship of THE SUN, there-fore, was the first deviation from the truth; the worship of THE SERPENT was one of the first innovations of idolatry. Whatever doubt may exist as to which was the first error, little doubt can arise as to the primitive and antediluvian character of both. For in the earliest heathen records we find them inexplicably interwoven as the first of superstitions. Thus Egyptian mythology informs us, that HELIUS (the sun) was the first of the Egyptian gods; for in early history, kings and gods are generally confounded. But Helius married OPS, the serpent deity! and became father of Osiris, Isis, Typhon, Apollo, and Venus 2: a tradition which would make the superstitions coeval. This fable being reduced to more simple terms, informs us, that the SUN, having married the SERPENT, became, by this union, the father of Adam and Eve, THE EVIL SPIRIT, the serpent-solar deity, and LUST; which appears to be a confusion of scriptural truths, in which chronological order is sacrificed from the simplification of a fable. But--ex pede Herculem--from the small fragments of the truth which are here combined, we may judge of the original dimensions of the knowledge whose ruins are thus heaped together. We may conclude, that since idolatry, lust, the serpent, and the evil spirit, are here said to have been synchronous with THE FIRST MAN and WOMAN, the whole fable is little more than a mythological version of the events in Paradise.
The first sinners and the first sin are well placed in the same family with the author of all evil: and as, through the serpent, he was introduced into Paradise; and through the serpent, they died, from righteousness, and were born anew in sin,--THE SERPENT may well be allegorically represented as the parent of each.
The reviver of Ophiolatreia, after the flood, must have been one of the family of Noah; for so high can we trace its post-diluvian history. Sanchoniathon tells us, that "SATURN, coming into the south country, gave the whole of Egypt to THE GOD TAAUTUS for his kingdom 1."
Now Taautus was the inventor of post-diluvian Ophiolatreia 2; and since Saturn was Noah, according to every system for the interpretation of mythology, it is historically certain that, during the lifetime of this patriarch, or shortly after his death, THE WORSHIP OF THE SERPENT was revived in Egypt.
But not only in Egypt must we look for its early revival. We have traced it in countries which never could have had intercourse with the kingdom of Taautus, until the voyages of the Phœnicians, or the conquests of the Romans, opened a passage for its mysteries. And then--here, in the remotest regions of the earth--amidst the fastnesses of Wales and the wilds of Wiltshire,--were found a people who adored the same god, symbolized by the same serpent, and propitiated with the same sacrifice--A HUMAN VICTIM! Who remembered in their mythology the same primeval tradition of THE WOMAN PERSECUTED BY THE MALIGNANT DRAGON; and blended with their fables such records of the Fall of Man as could hardly have been devised by their own invention, irrelative as they are to every other part of their idolatry.
Thus the veneration of the OAK (which did not conduce to any national utility, as they never cut it down,) was totally unconnected with their theological system, and must therefore have been handed down to them by immemorial custom, the meaning of which had been lost in the darkness of ages.
The same adoration of trees, in conjunction with serpent-worship, prevailed in the still darker regions of Sarmatia, and among the infinitely more degraded natives of the coast of Africa. And who can have the hardihood to venture an assertion, that such a superstition was the invention of one polished nation, and conveyed, by their commercial or warlike enterprises, into countries cut off by trackless oceans or immeasurable deserts? Who can assert, with any
hope of making good his hypothesis, that the Egyptian philosopher, or Phœnician merchant, or Assyrian conqueror, instructed in the same worship the grovelling Whidanese, the erratic Sarmatian, or the inaccessible Briton?
The inland progress of the sacred serpent might have been conducted by Chaldæan colonies into some of the neighbouring districts; but in ages when the exploits of a single traveller furnished matter for fables as numerous as they were marvellous, it is not at all likely that a Chaldæan colony would penetrate on the one side beyond the Oural, or on the other beyond the Himaleh mountains, in sufficient force to revolutionize the religion of those regions. And yet in remote China, and secluded Scandinavia, THE SAME SERPENT holds his dominion in the sea, and his reign upon the land! But if to these distant dwellings of the sacred dragon we add his immemorial habitation in Peru and Mexico, the improbability that Ophiolatreia was a Chaldæan invention increases with additional force: and if Chaldæa be deprived of the sceptre of universal proselytism, where is the nation that can contend for the distinction?
With respect to the introduction of Ophiolatreia into Britain, it is historically certain that the Phœnicians were the only people of antiquity who pushed their adventurous barques into these remote latitudes: and although in some particulars the languages and religions coincide, yet we cannot imagine that such a priesthood as THE DRUIDS could have sprung from the slow and solitary vessels which, creeping along the coasts of Africa and Gaul, discharged their ballast upon the desert Cassiterides; and, unconscious of any object but that of accumulating wealth, returned home with the tin ore of those valuable islands. That accidental circumstances, in the lapse of ages, introduced many innovations into the religion of the West, we can readily believe: but to recognize in the Druids, the magi of Chaldea, the philosophers of Egypt, or the Brahmins of Hindûstan, (except inasmuch as they are all probably descended from the original idolatrous priesthood dispersed at Babel,) is a refinement of conjecture which requires more substantial proofs than have hitherto been advanced. Identity of remote origin will satisfactorily account for identity of opinions in countries so separated by land and sea, without supposing any subsequent intercourse by colonies or navigation.
It appears, then, that no nations were so geographically remote, or so religiously discordant, but that one--and ONLY ONE 1--superstitious characteristic was common to all: that the most civilized and the most barbarous bowed down with the same devotion to the same engrossing deity; and that this deity either was, or was represented by, the same SACRED SERPENT.
It appears also that in most, if not all, the civilized countries where this serpent was worshipped, some fable or tradition which involved his history, directly or indirectly, alluded to THE FALL OF MAN in Paradise, in which THE SERPENT was concerned.
What follows, then, but that the most ancient account respecting the cause and nature of this seduction must be the one from which all the rest are derived which represent the victorious serpent,--victorious over man in a state of innocence, and subduing his soul in a state of sin, into the most abject veneration and adoration of himself.
This account we have in the writings of MOSES,--confessedly the most ancient historical records which exist in the world. The writings of MOSES, therefore, contain the true history; and the serpent of Paradise is the prototype of the serpent of all the superstitions. From his "subtilty" arose the adoption of the serpent as an emblem of "wisdom;" from his revealing the hidden virtue of the forbidden fruit, the use of the same reptile in divination; from his conversation with Eve, the notion that the serpent was oracular: and, after this, the transition from a SYMBOL, a TALISMAN, and an ORACLE, to a GOD, was rapid and imperceptible, and would naturally have taken place even had there been no tradition of the celestial origin of the fallen spirit, who became the serpent-tempter.
II. In reviewing the hopes and traditions of the Gentiles, we find that they not only preserved in their mythological writings a memorial of THE FALL, but also a strong vestige of the promise of REDEMPTION. The "bruising of the serpent" was equally known in the mythologies of Egypt, Hindûstan, Greece, Persia, Scandinavia, and Mexico. In each of these we recognize a TRIUMPHANT GOD, and a VANQUISHED SERPENT. Neither can this, any more than the remembrance of the fall, be a casual coincidence. There is nothing in the belief which would naturally suggest itself to the imaginations of people so remote and so unconnected. In respect of this expectation, therefore, we may similarly conclude, that where so many independent traditions coincide, the most ancient must be the one from which all the rest were originally derived. This will again bring us to the Promise of Redemption, in the curse upon the serpent, as revealed to Adam. But it will do more:--it will teach us IN WHAT LIGHT the first of men who fell, and to whom first it was announced that "the wages of sin is DEATH," looked forward to "the gift of God, which is ETERNAL LIFE, THROUGH JESUS CHRIST, OUR LORD." It will teach us that neither Adam, any more than ourselves, "looked for transitory promises;" that the REDEMPTION, which was the object of his ardent faith, was not temporal, but SPIRITUAL; that the agent of that redemption, in his heaven-directed eye, was not a mere man, heir of his infirmities, his sins, and his mortality, but "GOD MANIFEST IN THE FLESH;" and that, through the sufferings of this JUST ONE, in his conflict with the evil spirit, he expected to "bruise the serpent's head."
That such was the faith of Adam, the faith of all the world declares. For what was this faith in respect of THE VANQUISHED SERPENT, and the TRIUMPHANT GOD?--APOLLO slays Python; HERCULES, the Hesperian dragon; CRISHNA, the king of the Nagas; and THOR, "the serpent which is cast into the sea," But Apollo for his victory is doomed "to depart from the world 1;" Hercules and Crishna are bitten by the serpent; the former in the HEEL! while Thor gains the victory only with his life. Yet Apollo, Hercules, Crishna, and Thor, are all INCARNATE DEITIES!
If, therefore, the legends which represent their triumphs be derived from the promise of Redemption in Paradise, the idea of their INCARNATION must have been derived from the same source. It is evident, therefore, that Adam, or (which is the same thing) Noah, must have considered the promise to imply a Redemption, which would be wrought by the sufferings of "GOD MANIFEST IN THE FLESH."
That Adam "did not look for transitory promises," is further evident from the condition in which he was left by the Fall; which, if not alleviated by some abiding hope, must have accelerated his death by accumulated miseries.
To the serpent God said, "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel 1." Darkly as this promise may have conveyed the hope, that a hope of redemption was effectually conveyed by it, we have every reason to believe, from the mere fact that "the days of Adam were nine hundred and thirty years, and he died 2." He died at an age to which he could not, humanly calculating, have arrived, had his life been so wretched as the fall from innocence and the curse of God would have made it, had that fall been irrecoverable, and that curse irremovable. For when we consider that through this protracted period, he sustained the trials of an "accursed" soil, of children given but to be taken away, of an anxious mind and an afflicted body,--anxiety and affliction being the necessary result of his lapse from innocence; when we consider that his memory, however impaired, was not destroyed, but could carry back his mind to a period of happiness now no longer existing; and that his body, however fresh, and beautiful, and vigorous, must one day "return to the earth as it was;"--we must be assured that he had SOMETHING, beyond his present hopes, to comfort and support him in his pilgrimage upon earth; that he had some well-grounded and abiding faith in another existence, more suitable to the energies, and more consoling to the necessities of the soul. The only comfort which revelation has announced for his support, is the promise contained in the curse upon the serpent; and as it would be the extreme of absurdity to interpret this literally, we must look for a figurative and spiritual interpretation. Such an interpretation has been put upon it by Scripture; but we can arrive at the same conclusion by independent arguments.
Footnotes 442:1 Bryant, i. 61.
442:2 Just. Mart. Apol i. 60.
444:1 See Archæol. vol. 7.
445:1 See "Ophiol. in Hindûstan."
446:1 See "FABLES"--Typon.
446:2 Euseb. Præp. Evang. p. 45, citing Manetho.
448:1 Apud. Euseb. Præp. Ev. p. 39.
448:2 ibid.
452:1 It is but justice to the reader to state that Mr. Faber objects to this exclusiveness which I have attributed to the universality of serpent-worship:--"It formed part of a regular system," he observes, "which system was universal; but serpent-worship was not universal as opposed to hero-worship and Sabianism." My assertion was founded upon the argument, that in some parts of Africa, and in Sarmatia, where the living serpent was the supreme deity, there are no traces of any dæmon-worship or Sabianism. Whereas in every country where the SUN was an object of idolatry, the SERPENT was also venerated as divine.
455:1 Plutarch de def. Orac.
456:1 Gen. iii. 15.
456:2 Gen. v. 5.
Whence, then, did this ONLY-UNIVERSAL IDOLATRY originate? That it preceded POLYTHEISM, is indicated by the attribution of the title OPS, and the consecration of the symbolical serpent to so many of the heathen deities. The title Ors was conferred upon Terra, Vesta, Rhea, Cybele, Juno, Diana--and even Vulcan is called by Cicero, Opas 1.
In Grecian mythology, the symbolical serpent was sacred to Saturn, Jupiter, Apollo, Bacchus, Mars, Æsculapius, Rhea, Juno, Minerva, Diana, Ceres, and Proserpine--that is, the serpent was a sacred emblem of nearly all the gods and goddesses 2.
The same remark may be extended to the Theogonies of Egypt, Hindûstan, and Mexico--in all of which we find the serpent emblematic, not of one deity, but of many. What then, is the inference?--That the serpent was the most ancient of the heathen gods; and that as his attributes were multiplied by superstitious devotion, new names were invented to represent the new personifications which, in the progress of time, dividing the unity, destroyed the integrity of the original worship. Yet each of these schismatic superstitions bore some faint trace of its dracontic origin, in retaining the symbolical serpent. Some of these deifications may be easily traced, though others are obscure and difficult.
The mystic serpent entered into the mythology of every nation; consecrated almost every temple; symbolized almost every deity; was imagined in the heavens, stamped upon the earth, and ruled in the realms of everlasting sorrow. His subtilty raised him into an emblem of wisdom; he was therefore pictured upon the aegis of Minerva, and crowned her helmet. The knowledge of futurity which he displayed in Paradise exalted him into a symbol of vaticination; he was therefore oracular, and reigned at Delphi. The "opening of the eyes" of our deluded first parents obtained him an altar in the temple of the god of healing; he is therefore the constant companion of Æsculapius. In the distribution of his qualities the genius of mythology did not even gloss over his malignant attributes. The fascination with which he intoxicated the souls of the first sinners, depriving them at once of purity and immortality, of the image of God and of the life of angels, was symbolically remembered and fatally celebrated in the orgies of Bacchus, where serpents crowned the heads of the Bacchantes, and the "Poculum Boni Dæmonis" circulated under the auspices of the Ophite hierogram chased upon its rim 1. But the most remarkable remembrance of the power of the paradisiacal serpent is displayed in the position which he retains in Tartarus. A cunodracontic Cerberus guards the gates; serpents are coiled upon the chariot wheels of Proserpine; serpents pave the abyss of torment; and even serpents constitute the caduceus of Mercury, the talisman which he holds when he conveys the soul to Tartarus. The image of the serpent is stamped upon every mythological fable connected with the realms of Pluto. Is it not then probable, that in the universal symbol of heathen idolatry we recognize the universal object of primitive worship--THE SERPENT OF PARADISE.
But this inference depends not on mere symbolical worship: for we trace the sacred serpent, by the lamp of tradition, through the waters of the deluge to the world which they overwhelmed. In the mythological systems of Hindûstan and Egypt, we find him, as THE CAUSE of that awful calamity, moving in the waters, and troubling the deep: and a Brahminical legend indicates his existence even before that visitation. In the channel of the river Ganges, in the province of Bahar, is a remarkable rock, upon which is sculptured a figure of Veshnu reposing upon a serpent. This serpent is fabled to have been the goddess DEVI or ISI, who assumed the form to carry Veshnu over the deluge. The sleep of Veshnu indicates the period between the two worlds 1. May we not then infer that this legend alludes to the existence of the sacred serpent in the world before the flood? And further, is it not probable, since this sacred serpent is confounded with ISI, (the Isis of Egypt--the Eve of Scripture 1), that the tradition recognises THE SERPENT OF PARADISE?
The only worship which can vie with that of the serpent in antiquity or universality, is the adoration of the SUN. But uniformly with the progress of the solar superstition, has advanced the sacred serpent from Babylon to Peru. If the worship of THE SUN, there-fore, was the first deviation from the truth; the worship of THE SERPENT was one of the first innovations of idolatry. Whatever doubt may exist as to which was the first error, little doubt can arise as to the primitive and antediluvian character of both. For in the earliest heathen records we find them inexplicably interwoven as the first of superstitions. Thus Egyptian mythology informs us, that HELIUS (the sun) was the first of the Egyptian gods; for in early history, kings and gods are generally confounded. But Helius married OPS, the serpent deity! and became father of Osiris, Isis, Typhon, Apollo, and Venus 2: a tradition which would make the superstitions coeval. This fable being reduced to more simple terms, informs us, that the SUN, having married the SERPENT, became, by this union, the father of Adam and Eve, THE EVIL SPIRIT, the serpent-solar deity, and LUST; which appears to be a confusion of scriptural truths, in which chronological order is sacrificed from the simplification of a fable. But--ex pede Herculem--from the small fragments of the truth which are here combined, we may judge of the original dimensions of the knowledge whose ruins are thus heaped together. We may conclude, that since idolatry, lust, the serpent, and the evil spirit, are here said to have been synchronous with THE FIRST MAN and WOMAN, the whole fable is little more than a mythological version of the events in Paradise.
The first sinners and the first sin are well placed in the same family with the author of all evil: and as, through the serpent, he was introduced into Paradise; and through the serpent, they died, from righteousness, and were born anew in sin,--THE SERPENT may well be allegorically represented as the parent of each.
The reviver of Ophiolatreia, after the flood, must have been one of the family of Noah; for so high can we trace its post-diluvian history. Sanchoniathon tells us, that "SATURN, coming into the south country, gave the whole of Egypt to THE GOD TAAUTUS for his kingdom 1."
Now Taautus was the inventor of post-diluvian Ophiolatreia 2; and since Saturn was Noah, according to every system for the interpretation of mythology, it is historically certain that, during the lifetime of this patriarch, or shortly after his death, THE WORSHIP OF THE SERPENT was revived in Egypt.
But not only in Egypt must we look for its early revival. We have traced it in countries which never could have had intercourse with the kingdom of Taautus, until the voyages of the Phœnicians, or the conquests of the Romans, opened a passage for its mysteries. And then--here, in the remotest regions of the earth--amidst the fastnesses of Wales and the wilds of Wiltshire,--were found a people who adored the same god, symbolized by the same serpent, and propitiated with the same sacrifice--A HUMAN VICTIM! Who remembered in their mythology the same primeval tradition of THE WOMAN PERSECUTED BY THE MALIGNANT DRAGON; and blended with their fables such records of the Fall of Man as could hardly have been devised by their own invention, irrelative as they are to every other part of their idolatry.
Thus the veneration of the OAK (which did not conduce to any national utility, as they never cut it down,) was totally unconnected with their theological system, and must therefore have been handed down to them by immemorial custom, the meaning of which had been lost in the darkness of ages.
The same adoration of trees, in conjunction with serpent-worship, prevailed in the still darker regions of Sarmatia, and among the infinitely more degraded natives of the coast of Africa. And who can have the hardihood to venture an assertion, that such a superstition was the invention of one polished nation, and conveyed, by their commercial or warlike enterprises, into countries cut off by trackless oceans or immeasurable deserts? Who can assert, with any
hope of making good his hypothesis, that the Egyptian philosopher, or Phœnician merchant, or Assyrian conqueror, instructed in the same worship the grovelling Whidanese, the erratic Sarmatian, or the inaccessible Briton?
The inland progress of the sacred serpent might have been conducted by Chaldæan colonies into some of the neighbouring districts; but in ages when the exploits of a single traveller furnished matter for fables as numerous as they were marvellous, it is not at all likely that a Chaldæan colony would penetrate on the one side beyond the Oural, or on the other beyond the Himaleh mountains, in sufficient force to revolutionize the religion of those regions. And yet in remote China, and secluded Scandinavia, THE SAME SERPENT holds his dominion in the sea, and his reign upon the land! But if to these distant dwellings of the sacred dragon we add his immemorial habitation in Peru and Mexico, the improbability that Ophiolatreia was a Chaldæan invention increases with additional force: and if Chaldæa be deprived of the sceptre of universal proselytism, where is the nation that can contend for the distinction?
With respect to the introduction of Ophiolatreia into Britain, it is historically certain that the Phœnicians were the only people of antiquity who pushed their adventurous barques into these remote latitudes: and although in some particulars the languages and religions coincide, yet we cannot imagine that such a priesthood as THE DRUIDS could have sprung from the slow and solitary vessels which, creeping along the coasts of Africa and Gaul, discharged their ballast upon the desert Cassiterides; and, unconscious of any object but that of accumulating wealth, returned home with the tin ore of those valuable islands. That accidental circumstances, in the lapse of ages, introduced many innovations into the religion of the West, we can readily believe: but to recognize in the Druids, the magi of Chaldea, the philosophers of Egypt, or the Brahmins of Hindûstan, (except inasmuch as they are all probably descended from the original idolatrous priesthood dispersed at Babel,) is a refinement of conjecture which requires more substantial proofs than have hitherto been advanced. Identity of remote origin will satisfactorily account for identity of opinions in countries so separated by land and sea, without supposing any subsequent intercourse by colonies or navigation.
It appears, then, that no nations were so geographically remote, or so religiously discordant, but that one--and ONLY ONE 1--superstitious characteristic was common to all: that the most civilized and the most barbarous bowed down with the same devotion to the same engrossing deity; and that this deity either was, or was represented by, the same SACRED SERPENT.
It appears also that in most, if not all, the civilized countries where this serpent was worshipped, some fable or tradition which involved his history, directly or indirectly, alluded to THE FALL OF MAN in Paradise, in which THE SERPENT was concerned.
What follows, then, but that the most ancient account respecting the cause and nature of this seduction must be the one from which all the rest are derived which represent the victorious serpent,--victorious over man in a state of innocence, and subduing his soul in a state of sin, into the most abject veneration and adoration of himself.
This account we have in the writings of MOSES,--confessedly the most ancient historical records which exist in the world. The writings of MOSES, therefore, contain the true history; and the serpent of Paradise is the prototype of the serpent of all the superstitions. From his "subtilty" arose the adoption of the serpent as an emblem of "wisdom;" from his revealing the hidden virtue of the forbidden fruit, the use of the same reptile in divination; from his conversation with Eve, the notion that the serpent was oracular: and, after this, the transition from a SYMBOL, a TALISMAN, and an ORACLE, to a GOD, was rapid and imperceptible, and would naturally have taken place even had there been no tradition of the celestial origin of the fallen spirit, who became the serpent-tempter.
II. In reviewing the hopes and traditions of the Gentiles, we find that they not only preserved in their mythological writings a memorial of THE FALL, but also a strong vestige of the promise of REDEMPTION. The "bruising of the serpent" was equally known in the mythologies of Egypt, Hindûstan, Greece, Persia, Scandinavia, and Mexico. In each of these we recognize a TRIUMPHANT GOD, and a VANQUISHED SERPENT. Neither can this, any more than the remembrance of the fall, be a casual coincidence. There is nothing in the belief which would naturally suggest itself to the imaginations of people so remote and so unconnected. In respect of this expectation, therefore, we may similarly conclude, that where so many independent traditions coincide, the most ancient must be the one from which all the rest were originally derived. This will again bring us to the Promise of Redemption, in the curse upon the serpent, as revealed to Adam. But it will do more:--it will teach us IN WHAT LIGHT the first of men who fell, and to whom first it was announced that "the wages of sin is DEATH," looked forward to "the gift of God, which is ETERNAL LIFE, THROUGH JESUS CHRIST, OUR LORD." It will teach us that neither Adam, any more than ourselves, "looked for transitory promises;" that the REDEMPTION, which was the object of his ardent faith, was not temporal, but SPIRITUAL; that the agent of that redemption, in his heaven-directed eye, was not a mere man, heir of his infirmities, his sins, and his mortality, but "GOD MANIFEST IN THE FLESH;" and that, through the sufferings of this JUST ONE, in his conflict with the evil spirit, he expected to "bruise the serpent's head."
That such was the faith of Adam, the faith of all the world declares. For what was this faith in respect of THE VANQUISHED SERPENT, and the TRIUMPHANT GOD?--APOLLO slays Python; HERCULES, the Hesperian dragon; CRISHNA, the king of the Nagas; and THOR, "the serpent which is cast into the sea," But Apollo for his victory is doomed "to depart from the world 1;" Hercules and Crishna are bitten by the serpent; the former in the HEEL! while Thor gains the victory only with his life. Yet Apollo, Hercules, Crishna, and Thor, are all INCARNATE DEITIES!
If, therefore, the legends which represent their triumphs be derived from the promise of Redemption in Paradise, the idea of their INCARNATION must have been derived from the same source. It is evident, therefore, that Adam, or (which is the same thing) Noah, must have considered the promise to imply a Redemption, which would be wrought by the sufferings of "GOD MANIFEST IN THE FLESH."
That Adam "did not look for transitory promises," is further evident from the condition in which he was left by the Fall; which, if not alleviated by some abiding hope, must have accelerated his death by accumulated miseries.
To the serpent God said, "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel 1." Darkly as this promise may have conveyed the hope, that a hope of redemption was effectually conveyed by it, we have every reason to believe, from the mere fact that "the days of Adam were nine hundred and thirty years, and he died 2." He died at an age to which he could not, humanly calculating, have arrived, had his life been so wretched as the fall from innocence and the curse of God would have made it, had that fall been irrecoverable, and that curse irremovable. For when we consider that through this protracted period, he sustained the trials of an "accursed" soil, of children given but to be taken away, of an anxious mind and an afflicted body,--anxiety and affliction being the necessary result of his lapse from innocence; when we consider that his memory, however impaired, was not destroyed, but could carry back his mind to a period of happiness now no longer existing; and that his body, however fresh, and beautiful, and vigorous, must one day "return to the earth as it was;"--we must be assured that he had SOMETHING, beyond his present hopes, to comfort and support him in his pilgrimage upon earth; that he had some well-grounded and abiding faith in another existence, more suitable to the energies, and more consoling to the necessities of the soul. The only comfort which revelation has announced for his support, is the promise contained in the curse upon the serpent; and as it would be the extreme of absurdity to interpret this literally, we must look for a figurative and spiritual interpretation. Such an interpretation has been put upon it by Scripture; but we can arrive at the same conclusion by independent arguments.
Footnotes 442:1 Bryant, i. 61.
442:2 Just. Mart. Apol i. 60.
444:1 See Archæol. vol. 7.
445:1 See "Ophiol. in Hindûstan."
446:1 See "FABLES"--Typon.
446:2 Euseb. Præp. Evang. p. 45, citing Manetho.
448:1 Apud. Euseb. Præp. Ev. p. 39.
448:2 ibid.
452:1 It is but justice to the reader to state that Mr. Faber objects to this exclusiveness which I have attributed to the universality of serpent-worship:--"It formed part of a regular system," he observes, "which system was universal; but serpent-worship was not universal as opposed to hero-worship and Sabianism." My assertion was founded upon the argument, that in some parts of Africa, and in Sarmatia, where the living serpent was the supreme deity, there are no traces of any dæmon-worship or Sabianism. Whereas in every country where the SUN was an object of idolatry, the SERPENT was also venerated as divine.
455:1 Plutarch de def. Orac.
456:1 Gen. iii. 15.
456:2 Gen. v. 5.
Nagas & the Hopi
The Snake Dance has both attracted and repulsed non-Indian spectators since the late nineteenth century. During this infamous ritual performed every other August on the Hopi Mesas of Arizona, participants handle a mass of venomous and non-venomous snakes. Some even put necks and bodies into their mouths.
Unlike ophiolatry (serpent worship), the Snake Dance is a plea for agricultural fertility and rain in a beautiful but harsh desert landscape. However, many spectators would be surprised to learn that this bizarre rite came from India, the traditional land of snake charmers.
An ancient Hopi myth describes a migration from the flooded Third World (or Era) to the Fourth World. The ancestral Hopi escaped on reed rafts and made their way to the mouth of the Colorado River, up which they traveled to seek their final destination upon the Colorado Plateau.
A stepping stone on this monumental journey may have been the remote South Pacific island of Fiji. Here a fertility and youth initiation ceremony called Baki took place. 1. Its name is similar to the Hopi term paki, which means “entered” or “started being initiated.” (Hopi language does not recognize the ‘b’ sound.) The kiva (subterranean prayer chamber) used during the Snake Dance is called a pakit. 2.
A “naga” or “nanaga” was one of many walled sites where Fiji boys entered manhood. Explorer David Hatcher Childress writes that,
“...one of the ancient races of Southeast Asia is the Nagas, a seafaring race of people who traded in their ‘Serpent Boats’ similar to the Dragon ships of the Vikings.” 3.
Originating in India, the Nagas established religious centers throughout the country, including the Kingdom of Kashi on the Ganges, Kashmir to the north, and Nagpur in central India. The Nagas also inhabited the great metropolitan centers of Mohenjo-Daro and Harrappa in the Indus River Valley. They founded a port city on the Arabian Sea and exchanged goods globally, using a universal currency of cowries. 4.
As masters of arcane wisdom, the Nagas bequeathed to Mesoamerica the concept of nagual -- too complex to explain here but thoroughly delineated in the books by Carlos Castaneda about his tutelage with the Yaqui sorcerer Don Juan Matus.
The Nagas may also have been the Snake People whom the Hopi culture hero Tiyo met on his epic voyage across the ocean. In the underworld he enters a room where people wear snake skins. He is initiated into strange ceremonials, in which he learns rain prayers. After the young man is given a pair of maidens who sing to help corn grow, he carries them home to the earth’s surface. The Snake Woman becomes his wife, while the other becomes the bride of Flute youth. Finally his wife gives birth to reptiles, which causes Tiyo to leave his family and migrate to another country. 5.
Like Homer’s Odyssey, the story involves a subterranean visit. Paradoxically, the Hopi conceptualize this as a realm of both water and stars. Na-ngasohu is the Chasing Star Kachina, who wears a Plains-style eagle feather headdress and a large four-pointed star painted on his mask. (Kachinas are spirits in the form of any object, creature, or phenomenon.) Nanga means “to pursue” and sohu means “star.”
Related to Naga, the Hopi word nga’at means “medicine root” with magical healing properties. A root is both chthonic and morphologically snake-like. The term nakwa refers to headdress feathers worn during a sacred ceremony. 6. This plumage suggests the feathered serpent. Another related word, naqvu’at, means “ear,” and naaqa refers to “ear pendant,” frequently made of abalone.
This jewelry was worn in respectful imitation rather than mere adornment. Childress describes the so-called Long Ears:
“As tall, bearded navigators of the world, they were probably a combination of Egyptian, Libyan, Phoenician, Ethiopian, Greek and Celtic sailors in combination with Indo-Europeans from the Indian subcontinent. According to Polynesian legend, these sailors also have the famous ‘long ears’ that are well known on both Rapa Nui [Easter Island] and Rarotonga.” 7.
According to the mariner/scholar Thor Heyerdahl, ruling families of the Incas artificially lengthened their earlobes to distinguish themselves vis-a-vis their subjects. 8. (An earmark indeed! Perhaps Buddha with his long earlobes is no coincidence either.)
Author James Bailey believes that these rulers of Peru and some Pacific islands were Aryan and Semitic peoples originating from the Indus River Valley. “[Heyerdahl] showed that there lived on Easter Island the survivors of two distinct populations; the long-ears, a fair or red-headed European people who used to stretch their ear-lobes with wooden plugs so that they reached down to their shoulders and a Polynesian group of conventional Polynesian type, with natural ears. The first people had been known on the island as ‘long ears’, the second people as ‘short-ears’.” 9.
The former group attained an average height of six-and-a-half feet, and had white skin with red hair. It may be more than coincidence that the Hopi Fire Clan were known as the “redheads.” These war-like people lived with the Snake Clan at Betatakin, a late thirteenth century Arizona cliff dwelling (now in Navaho National Monument).
Easter Island may have been another stepping stone in the ancient Hopi migration. Some of the tall, long-eared statues called Moai were carved with red topknots. That Easter Island lies on the same meridian as the current home of the Hopi may be just another “coincidence.”
Noting the ear-plugs worn by tribes in Tanzania, Bailey comments on the ubiquity of this artifact: “The ear-plug is itself symptomatic of contact with sea-people and I believe has a common origin all over the world, wherever it is found.” 10. One example of this ring-type ear-plug carved from schist was found in ancient ruins near Phoenix, Arizona. 11. Here we see artifacts common to both desert and maritime people.
Mythological themes common to disparate cultures also exist. Scholar Cyrus H. Gordon relates a narrative from the early second millennium B.C. An Egyptian captain is ship-wrecked on the “island of Ka,” possibly located near Somalia in the Indian Ocean. (The Hopi ka in kachina is foreign and may be related to the Egyptian Ka, or “doppelg�nger.”) This paradise abounds in not only gorgeous birds but also fish, delicious fruits and vegetables. There’s only one catch. A serpent thirty cubits (forty-five feet) long rules it. This giant snake has gold plated skin, lapis lazuli eyebrows, and a beard extending two cubits (three feet).
After the sovereign serpent threatens to incinerate him for remaining silent, the captain relates how he and his crew were driven there by a fierce storm. In turn, the king describes his brethren and children, who once totaled seventy-two. He continues:
“Then a star fell and these (serpents) went forth in the flame it produced. It chanced I was not with them when they were burned. I was not among them (but) I just about died for them, when I found them as one corpse.”
The captain’s boat is then loaded with fine spices including myrrh, elephant tusks, giraffe tails, and monkeys. Before allowing him to leave, the king makes this curious remark: “It will happen that when you depart from this place, this island will never be seen again, for it will become water.” 12.
Whether or not he had long ears, the tale does not say. However, we may be witnessing one of the legendary Nagas. Beside the serpentine motif, this fabulous story contains a theme redolent of Atlantis or Mu. An Edenic island suddenly disappears beneath the waves in a celestial cataclysm destroying many lives.
Does the Hopi myth of Tiyo’s journey to the Island of Snakes and the Egyptian myth of the anonymous captain’s journey to the Island of Ka have a common source? We will never know for certain.
Likewise, we can only speculate on the seventy-two serpents encoded in the latter myth. This might refer to an astronomical movement of which astute mariners were undoubtedly aware. Due to the precession of the equinoxes, zodiac stars rising on the first day of spring and autumn shift backwards (currently from Pisces to Aquarius) one degree every seventy-two years. This is caused by the wobble of the Earth’s axis (its precession) like a spinning top. In the Egyptian tale the king’s seventy-two relatives were killed by a falling sidereal event. Hence, the “skyscape” known for a lifetime or more was overturned, only to be replaced by a slightly altered one.
An isolationist would say that ancient humans lacked the sophisticated observational skills to recognize a single degree of difference, or that early civilizations were technologically incapable of crossing oceans. In fact, many myths contradicting this seem to have been conceived by diffusionists.
I am not suggesting that an elite corps of Old World Whites came to “save” the scattered bands of “savage” Native Americans, thereby allowing the latter to flourish. (The cultural genocide in the New World during 16th through the 19th centuries makes that scenario particularly ironic.) This view denigrates both cultures, assigning an monolithic imperialism to the former and an evolutionary inferiority to the latter. In short, this is racism at its worst.
I am saying that the collective ingenuity of the peoples of North and South America together with the peoples of Oceania allowed them to sail to distant lands very early on. Likewise, the peoples of Europe and Asia used the same ingenuity to land on equally distant shores. The navigational knowledge of seafarers from all over the globe must have been a common currency.
This may be how a serpent cult from India made it to the high desert of Arizona. http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/esp_orionzone_7.htm
Unlike ophiolatry (serpent worship), the Snake Dance is a plea for agricultural fertility and rain in a beautiful but harsh desert landscape. However, many spectators would be surprised to learn that this bizarre rite came from India, the traditional land of snake charmers.
An ancient Hopi myth describes a migration from the flooded Third World (or Era) to the Fourth World. The ancestral Hopi escaped on reed rafts and made their way to the mouth of the Colorado River, up which they traveled to seek their final destination upon the Colorado Plateau.
A stepping stone on this monumental journey may have been the remote South Pacific island of Fiji. Here a fertility and youth initiation ceremony called Baki took place. 1. Its name is similar to the Hopi term paki, which means “entered” or “started being initiated.” (Hopi language does not recognize the ‘b’ sound.) The kiva (subterranean prayer chamber) used during the Snake Dance is called a pakit. 2.
A “naga” or “nanaga” was one of many walled sites where Fiji boys entered manhood. Explorer David Hatcher Childress writes that,
“...one of the ancient races of Southeast Asia is the Nagas, a seafaring race of people who traded in their ‘Serpent Boats’ similar to the Dragon ships of the Vikings.” 3.
Originating in India, the Nagas established religious centers throughout the country, including the Kingdom of Kashi on the Ganges, Kashmir to the north, and Nagpur in central India. The Nagas also inhabited the great metropolitan centers of Mohenjo-Daro and Harrappa in the Indus River Valley. They founded a port city on the Arabian Sea and exchanged goods globally, using a universal currency of cowries. 4.
As masters of arcane wisdom, the Nagas bequeathed to Mesoamerica the concept of nagual -- too complex to explain here but thoroughly delineated in the books by Carlos Castaneda about his tutelage with the Yaqui sorcerer Don Juan Matus.
The Nagas may also have been the Snake People whom the Hopi culture hero Tiyo met on his epic voyage across the ocean. In the underworld he enters a room where people wear snake skins. He is initiated into strange ceremonials, in which he learns rain prayers. After the young man is given a pair of maidens who sing to help corn grow, he carries them home to the earth’s surface. The Snake Woman becomes his wife, while the other becomes the bride of Flute youth. Finally his wife gives birth to reptiles, which causes Tiyo to leave his family and migrate to another country. 5.
Like Homer’s Odyssey, the story involves a subterranean visit. Paradoxically, the Hopi conceptualize this as a realm of both water and stars. Na-ngasohu is the Chasing Star Kachina, who wears a Plains-style eagle feather headdress and a large four-pointed star painted on his mask. (Kachinas are spirits in the form of any object, creature, or phenomenon.) Nanga means “to pursue” and sohu means “star.”
Related to Naga, the Hopi word nga’at means “medicine root” with magical healing properties. A root is both chthonic and morphologically snake-like. The term nakwa refers to headdress feathers worn during a sacred ceremony. 6. This plumage suggests the feathered serpent. Another related word, naqvu’at, means “ear,” and naaqa refers to “ear pendant,” frequently made of abalone.
This jewelry was worn in respectful imitation rather than mere adornment. Childress describes the so-called Long Ears:
“As tall, bearded navigators of the world, they were probably a combination of Egyptian, Libyan, Phoenician, Ethiopian, Greek and Celtic sailors in combination with Indo-Europeans from the Indian subcontinent. According to Polynesian legend, these sailors also have the famous ‘long ears’ that are well known on both Rapa Nui [Easter Island] and Rarotonga.” 7.
According to the mariner/scholar Thor Heyerdahl, ruling families of the Incas artificially lengthened their earlobes to distinguish themselves vis-a-vis their subjects. 8. (An earmark indeed! Perhaps Buddha with his long earlobes is no coincidence either.)
Author James Bailey believes that these rulers of Peru and some Pacific islands were Aryan and Semitic peoples originating from the Indus River Valley. “[Heyerdahl] showed that there lived on Easter Island the survivors of two distinct populations; the long-ears, a fair or red-headed European people who used to stretch their ear-lobes with wooden plugs so that they reached down to their shoulders and a Polynesian group of conventional Polynesian type, with natural ears. The first people had been known on the island as ‘long ears’, the second people as ‘short-ears’.” 9.
The former group attained an average height of six-and-a-half feet, and had white skin with red hair. It may be more than coincidence that the Hopi Fire Clan were known as the “redheads.” These war-like people lived with the Snake Clan at Betatakin, a late thirteenth century Arizona cliff dwelling (now in Navaho National Monument).
Easter Island may have been another stepping stone in the ancient Hopi migration. Some of the tall, long-eared statues called Moai were carved with red topknots. That Easter Island lies on the same meridian as the current home of the Hopi may be just another “coincidence.”
Noting the ear-plugs worn by tribes in Tanzania, Bailey comments on the ubiquity of this artifact: “The ear-plug is itself symptomatic of contact with sea-people and I believe has a common origin all over the world, wherever it is found.” 10. One example of this ring-type ear-plug carved from schist was found in ancient ruins near Phoenix, Arizona. 11. Here we see artifacts common to both desert and maritime people.
Mythological themes common to disparate cultures also exist. Scholar Cyrus H. Gordon relates a narrative from the early second millennium B.C. An Egyptian captain is ship-wrecked on the “island of Ka,” possibly located near Somalia in the Indian Ocean. (The Hopi ka in kachina is foreign and may be related to the Egyptian Ka, or “doppelg�nger.”) This paradise abounds in not only gorgeous birds but also fish, delicious fruits and vegetables. There’s only one catch. A serpent thirty cubits (forty-five feet) long rules it. This giant snake has gold plated skin, lapis lazuli eyebrows, and a beard extending two cubits (three feet).
After the sovereign serpent threatens to incinerate him for remaining silent, the captain relates how he and his crew were driven there by a fierce storm. In turn, the king describes his brethren and children, who once totaled seventy-two. He continues:
“Then a star fell and these (serpents) went forth in the flame it produced. It chanced I was not with them when they were burned. I was not among them (but) I just about died for them, when I found them as one corpse.”
The captain’s boat is then loaded with fine spices including myrrh, elephant tusks, giraffe tails, and monkeys. Before allowing him to leave, the king makes this curious remark: “It will happen that when you depart from this place, this island will never be seen again, for it will become water.” 12.
Whether or not he had long ears, the tale does not say. However, we may be witnessing one of the legendary Nagas. Beside the serpentine motif, this fabulous story contains a theme redolent of Atlantis or Mu. An Edenic island suddenly disappears beneath the waves in a celestial cataclysm destroying many lives.
Does the Hopi myth of Tiyo’s journey to the Island of Snakes and the Egyptian myth of the anonymous captain’s journey to the Island of Ka have a common source? We will never know for certain.
Likewise, we can only speculate on the seventy-two serpents encoded in the latter myth. This might refer to an astronomical movement of which astute mariners were undoubtedly aware. Due to the precession of the equinoxes, zodiac stars rising on the first day of spring and autumn shift backwards (currently from Pisces to Aquarius) one degree every seventy-two years. This is caused by the wobble of the Earth’s axis (its precession) like a spinning top. In the Egyptian tale the king’s seventy-two relatives were killed by a falling sidereal event. Hence, the “skyscape” known for a lifetime or more was overturned, only to be replaced by a slightly altered one.
An isolationist would say that ancient humans lacked the sophisticated observational skills to recognize a single degree of difference, or that early civilizations were technologically incapable of crossing oceans. In fact, many myths contradicting this seem to have been conceived by diffusionists.
I am not suggesting that an elite corps of Old World Whites came to “save” the scattered bands of “savage” Native Americans, thereby allowing the latter to flourish. (The cultural genocide in the New World during 16th through the 19th centuries makes that scenario particularly ironic.) This view denigrates both cultures, assigning an monolithic imperialism to the former and an evolutionary inferiority to the latter. In short, this is racism at its worst.
I am saying that the collective ingenuity of the peoples of North and South America together with the peoples of Oceania allowed them to sail to distant lands very early on. Likewise, the peoples of Europe and Asia used the same ingenuity to land on equally distant shores. The navigational knowledge of seafarers from all over the globe must have been a common currency.
This may be how a serpent cult from India made it to the high desert of Arizona. http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/esp_orionzone_7.htm
