ÆSCULAPIUS AND THE SERPENT.
The serpent is undoubtedly the most significant of all medical symbols.
Even Æsculapius assumed such a form, and was sometimes so represented by
sculptors. It was to him the most sacred of all animals. Down through the
ages this remarkable fact has been kept in view, and to-day it is almost
as patent as ever.
Now, what is the explanation of the serpent as a symbol in medicine? How
many medical men can say? Several explanations have currency; but I may
candidly state that none of these are quite satisfactory; and I could not
refer to an acceptable one in all the volumes in which such information
might be expected to be found, with which I am familiar. Here, then, is
a highly interesting and obvious fact to physicians, which few or none
completely understand. Can I cast any light on it? Some, certainly; but
just how much I must leave to the intelligent reader to judge, after
perusing this brief but comprehensive chapter.
The serpent in medicine is meant to symbolize prudence, something very
requisite in the physician. This opinion is one often expressed. It is
not necessarily baseless. To be “as wise as a serpent,” and to have “the
subtlety of the serpent,” are every-day phrases. The reptile has been
accorded such qualities from a very early date. De Gubernatis remarks
that in India it is still “revered as a symbol of every species of
learning.”[180]
It is often said that the serpent in medicine is meant to symbolize
the power of the art to produce renovation or rejuvenescence. This is
not an absurd notion. The basis of it is believed to be the periodical
renewal of the skin of the animal. This has long attracted attention.
In a precious extant fragment of the very ancient Phœnician book of
Sanchoniathon it is said of the serpent, “It is very long lived, and
has the quality not only of putting off its age and assuming a second
youth, but it receives a greater increase. And when it has fulfilled the
appointed measure of its existence it consumes itself.”[181] Referring
to its reputed longevity, one intelligent writer says: “This quality was
no doubt the cause why this animal entwined round a staff was the symbol
of health and the distinctive attribute of the classical Æsculapius and
Hygeia.”[182] At any rate, to restore people to health and renew their
age would be worthy employment for any one.
Another prevalent idea is, that the serpent in medicine is meant to
symbolize convalescence. The remarkable change from a state of lethargy
to one of active life, which the reptile undergoes every spring,
affords some ground for it. It is taken advantage of in the device of
the Rinovati Academy, as will be seen by turning to Mrs. Pelliser’s
interesting book.[183] Three serpents are represented on a bank
gathering vigor in the sunshine, in the strengthening rays of Apollo.
The educational interpretation is evidently quite as reasonable as the
medical.
Of the three foregoing explanations of the symbolic import of the serpent
in medicine, it must be said that there is good reason to hold that
they are largely, or entirely, mere after-thoughts. Any one of ingenious
mind could suggest several others just as worthy of acceptance. But, of
course, such a mode of interpretation is decidedly illegitimate.
The idea has been advanced that the commonest of the species of serpent,
_Elaphis Æsculapii_, described above, at Epidaurus, where the myth of the
Grecian god of medicine first took definite shape, affords an adequate
explanation of the association of the reptile with medicine. This may
have had a little to do with it. I cannot admit, however, that it did
more than, perhaps, emphasize somewhat the association. If such were its
origin, the association could not be viewed otherwise than as incidental,
and hence the serpent might be without any special meaning.
After referring to some strange curative virtue attributed to
serpents, Pliny says: “Hence it is that the snake is consecrated to
Æsculapius.”[184] Here is a specimen of them given by the rather
credulous old Roman: “It is a well-known fact that for all injuries
inflicted by serpents, and those even of an otherwise incurable nature,
it is an excellent remedy to apply the entrails of the serpent itself to
the wound.”[185] The principle is obviously the same as that illustrated
in the old custom of applying a hair of the dog to cure the wound caused
by the bite of the animal. In many parts of the world, the serpent has
been accorded great virtue as a medicine, and in China and elsewhere
such is the case even to this day. In fact, apart from the preposterous
and numerous uses to which it is put by homœopathic doctors, is not the
venom of the most deadly species declared by leading members of the
profession to be a capital cure for various serious ills? However,
Dr. D. G. Brinton quotes the rather striking observation of Agassiz,
that “the Maues Indians, who live between the Upper Tapajos and Madeira
Rivers in Brazil, whenever they assign a form to any ‘remedio,’ give it
that of a serpent.”[186] But, in spite of the wide belief in the virtue
of the serpent as a medicine, I cannot accept the opinion of Pliny,
that it affords a sufficient explanation of the matter in question. Its
actual healing properties were assuredly too equivocal to merit such
distinction. With all its virtues, _soma_ itself received little or no
more.
The fabled power of the serpent to discover herbs of curative virtues
has been suggested as an explanation of the association of it with
medicine. This is based on a traditional episode in the history of
Æsculapius, which reminds one of the German story of the Snake Leaves,
told by Grimm.[187] As regards the Æsculapian fable, it seems that on one
occasion, while thinking what treatment to resort to in the case of a
patient of his, Glaucus, a serpent appeared and twined itself around his
staff; he killed it, whereupon another came bearing in its mouth an herb
with which it restored the dead one to life. The god used the same herb
with similar effect on the human subject.[188] The extremely miraculous
feature of this explanation is an obstacle in the way of its acceptance.
It may be safely held that one must go back to a time long anterior to
that of Æsculapius of the Greeks to acquire the true medical import of
the serpent, which has been so closely associated with him. There is
excellent reason for believing that we have in it a remnant of that
ancient and wonderfully wide-spread cultus, serpent-worship, which is
still kept up by the Nagas[189] of India and others. Epidaurus was
favorably situated for communication with Egypt, a country in which the
serpent played a great religious rôle “from the very earliest period,”
as shown by both “written and monumental evidence,” to use the words of
Cooper,[190] as well as in later times, even within the Christian era,
when the special sect of Gnostics, who called themselves Ophitæ, were in
their glory. But, in truth, serpent-worship in Greece did not begin in
the time of Æsculapius. Bryant maintains that it was brought into Greece
by Cadmus, who, under the name of Taautus, or Thoth, took it also to both
Egypt and Phœnicia from Babylonia.[191]
One can advance sufficient evidence to indicate with considerable
conclusiveness that the Egyptians were in the habit of looking to a
serpentine divinity for the cure of disease. In his interesting little
book,[192] Sharpe gives a figure of a serpent wearing the double
crown of Upper and Lower Egypt, on a pole or standard, a cut of which
is reproduced (Fig. 6), which was carried in the periodical airing
processions of the Egyptian divinities. Now, it is quite certain that
Moses, and his people, too, were very familiar with this figure and its
import; but, at any rate, we find him making an imitation of it, in his
journey with the Israelites in the Wilderness; and for what purpose? The
story is told in the Bible, and runs thus: “And Moses made a serpent of
brass and put it upon a pole; and it came to pass that if a serpent had
bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass he lived.”[193]
Verily, there is the Healer in essentially the same form in which he was
sometimes embodied by the Greeks and Romans. Hence, it is sure that the
serpent, as a medical symbol, took shape before the time of Æsculapius;
long before, for Moses lived nearly four hundred years earlier than he,
and, as we have just seen, it was likely far from new, far from being
unfamiliar in his day. Fergusson has this to say of it: “It is the first
record we have of actual worship being performed to the serpent; and it
is also remarkable, as the cause of this adoration is said to have been
its healing powers.”[194]
[Illustration: FIG. 6.—THE SERPENT-HEALER.]
The opinion has been widely entertained that the prototype of the brazen
serpent of Moses, simply “Nehushtan”[195] in later times, was the _bonus
dæmon_, the _Agathodæmon_[196] of the Greeks, Egyptians, and others. This
“good genius” was regarded with great favor, and doubtless many were in
the habit of according it power over disease. In the grove of Epidaurus,
as in Indian temples and elsewhere among early peoples, the serpent was
the _genius loci_, and hence the Agathodæmon, the bringer of health and
good fortune, the teacher of wisdom, the oracle of future events. One was
kept in the Erechtheum, close to the sacred olive-tree, and in each of
many other temples. One was to be found, according to Ebers, “in every
temple”[197] in Egypt.
Evidence has recently been brought forward which goes to show that
the serpent called the “good genius” in Egypt, in general, was in the
part familiar to the Israelites, in the district of Suket, called also
the dwelling-place of Ankh, “the Living One,” whose chief city was
Piton,[198] regarded as the simulacrum of the sun-god Ra, or, rather,
Atum, Tum, or Tom, the sun as he sets.[199] Brugsch, who has studied
the matter carefully, says: “The god Tom represents solely the Egyptian
type, corresponding to the divinity of Piton, who is called by the name
of Ankh, and surnamed ‘the great god.’... A serpent to which the Egyptian
texts give the epithet of ‘the Magnificent,’ ‘the Splendid,’ was regarded
as the living symbol of the god of Piton. It bore the name of Kereh;
that is, ‘the Smooth.’ And this serpent again transports us into the
camp of the Children of Israel in the Wilderness; it recalls to us the
brazen serpent of Moses, to which the Hebrews offered the perfumes of
incense, until the time when King Hezekiah[200] decreed the abolition
of this ancient serpent-worship.”[201] He further says: “I will not
venture to decide the question whether the god, ‘He who lives,’ of the
Egyptian text is identical with the Jehovah of the Hebrews, but, at all
events, everything tends to this belief when we remember that the name
of Jehovah[202] contains the same meaning as the Egyptian word Ankh, ‘He
who lives.’”[203] These are highly interesting statements of this learned
Egyptologist.
Bearing in mind what has just been said, it is interesting to turn to
what Solomon (?) says about the “brazen serpent,” and the cures wrought
by it. In the “Book of Wisdom,” it is spoken of as a symbol, “a sign of
salvation;”[204] and, it is said: “For it was neither herb nor molifying
plaster that healed them, but thy word, O Lord, which healeth all
things.”[205] And to this it is added: “For it was thou, O Lord, that
hath power of life and death and leadest down to the gates of death and
bringest back again.”[206]
Christian writers have generally explained the brazen serpent to be a
symbol of God, or the Savior. The writer of the article on medicine,
in Smith’s “Dictionary of the Bible,” says that even in the Talmud it
is acknowledged “that the healing power lay not in the brazen serpent
itself, but as soon as they feared the Most High and uplifted their
hearts to the heavenly father they were healed, and in default of this
they were brought to nought.” Thus the brazen serpent was symbolical
only. A serpent clinging to a cross was formerly much used as an emblem
of Christ. In fact, a sort of Christian serpent-worship was for a long
period greatly in vogue among many besides the professed Ophitæ.
In this connection it is well to say, that the _naja_ _haje_, _naia_,
or _asp_, the serpent shown in the cut of the brazen serpent, was the
species always, or nearly always, taken to represent the spirit pervading
nature, the Agathodæmon, or Cnuphis, whom the Egyptians were wont to
adore as the creator of the world. It was the Uræus or Basiliskos of
the Pharaohs. It is from three to five feet in length. It is extremely
venomous. In appearance, it resembles the Indian cobra de capello,[207]
but has no spectacle-marking on its head. In hieroglyphics it signifies
“goddess.”
As to “the serpent of the burning bite which destroyed the Children of
Israel,” I may say, in the words of an authoritative work, “Either the
cerastes or the naja haje or any other venomous species frequenting
Arabia may denote it.”[208] The _Vipera cerastes_ is small, horned,
burrows in sand, and is very venomous. Herodotus was led to believe
that it was “perfectly harmless,”[209]—a great mistake. It was used to
represent the letter f. Says Sir Gardner Wilkinson: “As Herodotus does
not notice the asp, it is possible that he may have attributed to the
cerastes the honor that really belonged to that sacred snake.”[210] This
mistake is still frequently made.
But the association of the serpent with Æsculapius, as a remnant of
serpent-worship, can be explained without going to the Egyptian Tum, or
any other foreign sun-god. One has but to turn to Apollo, to whom, as in
the case of, perhaps, all sun-gods, the reptile was sacred.[211]
The question now is, then, what was the reason for the association of
the serpent with Apollo? The usual reply is: the destruction by him of
the Python, which is essentially the same as the Aub or Ob, or, as it is
often given, Typhon, of the Egyptians, an evil monster which was probably
taken primarily to represent harm resulting from the periodical overflow
of the Nile. Homer says:—
“With his shining shaft Apollo slew
That ugly dragon, hideous to the view,
Which grew, long nourished in its slimy den,
A monster horrible, the dread of men.”[212]
Admitting, however, that Apollo overcame a mythical serpent, like many
related divinities, from the Vedic sun-god, Indra, the destroyer of
Ahis down, does not afford a satisfactory solution of the matter under
discussion. The Agathodæmon is infinitely preferable to Typhon as the
prototype of the serpent of Æsculapius. It, indeed, was the reptile
sacred to Apollo as well as Tum.
A study of the origin of the association of the good serpent with Apollo
and Ra-Tum and other sun-gods is interesting. In the search for it one
may get a clue to it in comparative mythology. The close resemblance to
one another of Apollo, Ra, Baal-Samen of the Phœnicians, Shamas of the
Assyrians, and other sun-gods, would lead one to think that there was an
archetypal one; and to find this original one the intelligent mind would
naturally look to the East, to the region about the lower waters of the
Tigris and Euphrates, and with a reasonable expectation of discovering
it there.[213] For among the Turanians, in that locality, the worship
of the heavenly bodies undoubtedly first acquired prominence; and in
the same locality, too, among the same people, the worship of serpents,
according to Bryant,[214] who has written learnedly on the subject,
began, and, as Fergusson says, not only originated but “spread thence,
as from a centre, to every country or land of the old world in which a
Turanian people settled,”[215] becoming adopted to some extent also by
Semites and Aryans. From Hea, one of the three great gods (Ana, Hea, and
Bel) of the Accadio-Sumerians, and, later, of the people of Babylonia,
doubtless sprang some features of the Apollo myth, and possibly in
part through Horus of the Egyptians. To Baal-Samen, the baal of the
heavens, of the Phœnicians, Apollo had many points of resemblance. It
has been maintained, however, that Apollo was “a pure growth of the Greek
mind.”[216] He was so in part.
[Illustration: FIG. 7.—A SYMBOL OF HEA.]
Speaking of Hea, Lenormant says that it was he “that animated matter
and rendered it fertile, that penetrated the universe and directed and
inspired it with life.”[217] As water was believed to be the vehicle
of all life and the source of generation, he sprung from the ocean and
was regarded as amphibious. Oannes[218] was the name by which he was
known by the Greeks. Like Dagon, of the Philistines, whose prototype he
was, it was usual to give him the combined form of a fish and a man.
One of the symbols of him, according to Rawlinson,[219] was a serpent,
an illustration of which is reproduced here. He was the god of life,
and, significantly enough, the literal meaning of his name is serpent
as well as life. Here, then, we have the serpent signifying life. This
is a very noteworthy fact. In an interesting paper read in 1872 before
the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain, by Mr. C. S. Wake, it is
very properly said: “It is probable that the association with the serpent
of the idea of healing arose from the still earlier recognition of that
animal as a symbol of life.”[220]
It is not amiss to remark, in this connection, that it is curious fact
that the American Indians associated a serpent with the great sun-god,
or, rather, the god of light, Manabozho,[221] a healing divinity, the
one that instituted the sacred Medicine-Feast. It is observed by Miss
Emerson that “Apollo, as a god of medicine, was originally worshipped
under the form of a serpent,[222] and men worshipped him as a helper; and
we trace a similar idea among the Indians relative to Manabozho. And a
further association of ideas suggests the mystic god, Unk-ta-he, the god
of waters, pictured as a serpent, who was believed to have power over
diseases.”[223] To this I may add that Hea sprang from the Persian Gulf,
and was regarded as the god of waters as well as of life.
[Illustration: FIG. 8.—MANABOZHO.]
A great deal has been written on serpent-worship, “the first variation,”
says Bryant, “from the purer Sabaism;”[224] and the number of suggested
explanations of the curious cultus is almost legion. I hesitate about
touching on the subject; but some statements on it are called for, to
render the treatment of the matter on hand reasonably complete.
In a recent able work, Mr. C. F. Keary, of the British Museum, presents
some interesting facts and inferences on the origin of the worship.
He maintains that the tree, mountain, and river were the three great
primitive fetich-gods, and forcibly argues that a serpent was the symbol
of the last, which, it may be noted, is nearly always a life-giving
power, an early and substantial type of the _fontaine de jouvence_.
Without pretending to account for their original worship, he “takes it
for certain that, at a very early time, rivers became through symbolism
confounded with serpents.”[225]
Remnants of the three fetich-gods of Mr. Keary are preserved in later
and more abstract cults, and may be largely found in Indo-European
mythologies. The Greeks and Romans appear to have regarded rivers and
mountains with particular favor, while the Celts and Teutons were more
especially devoted to trees. The wells of knowledge and of magic and
the fountains of youth which are met with in myth and legend are simply
the narrowing to particular instances of the magic, the sacredness, and
the healing gifts which were once universally attributed to streams.
The monstrous python which Apollo encountered and destroyed at Delphi
was, according to Mr. Keary, a river, and a harmful one,—the river of
death. “The reptile was, we know,” says he, “before all things, sacred
to Æsculapius, and was kept in his house, as, for example, in the great
temple at Epidaurus. It would seem that the sun-god has the special
mission of overcoming and absorbing unto himself this form of fetich.
This is why Apollo slays the python, and why the snake is sacred to
Æsculapius.”[226]
Mr. Keary was by no means the first, I may say, to emphasize the
association of serpents with rivers. The fact has been dwelt on by Dr.
Brinton. Says this distinguished student of American archæology: “The
sinuous course of the serpent is like nothing so much as that of a
winding river; which, therefore, we often call serpentine. So did the
Indians. Kennebec, a stream in Maine, in the Algonkin, means snake,
and Antietam, the creek in Maryland of tragic celebrity, in an Iroquois
dialect, has the same significance. How easily could savages, construing
the figure literally, make the serpent a river- or water-god.”[227]
I believe, however, that it would be a mistake to hold that the serpent
was at any time exclusively a symbol of the river. Both Mr. Keary and
Dr. Brinton say as much. In the old world, as well as in the new, it was
widely recognized as a symbol of lightning, and believed to have power
over wind and rain.
Some have turned to the heavens for an explanation of serpent-worship.
Thus, Mr. Arthur Lillie, in an interesting little work, says: “Like
all old religious ideas, the serpent-symbol was, probably, in the
first instance, astronomical.[228] Two thousand eight hundred and
thirty-six years before Christ, a large star was within one degree of
the celestial pole. This was the _A_ of Draco.”[229] Much interest was
taken in this star of Draco, formerly, as Mr. Proctor says, “the polar
constellation”[230] in different countries,[231] as, for instance, in
Egypt. In their studies of the great pyramid Jizeh, both Proctor and
Piazzi Smyth[232] dwell on the subject at length.[233] The passage from
the north, which slants downward at an angle of 26° 17´ into the immense
structure, would seem to have been constructed so that _A_ of Draco shone
down it. When this was the case, the star was 3° 42´ from the pole,
which was its position both about 2170 and 3350 B.C. “We conclude,” says
Proctor, “with considerable confidence, that it was about one of the two
dates, 3350 and 2170 B.C., that the erection of the great pyramid began,
and from the researches of Egyptologists it has become all but certain
that the earlier of these dates is very near the correct epoch.”[234]
Smyth takes 2170 B.C. as the correct date, but his unscientific method
of study renders him an unreliable authority. The question is highly
interesting and important.
However, the constellation of Draco was represented in ancient astronomy
by a tortuous serpent, either alone or in connection with a tree. Those
familiar with the description of the shield of Hercules,[235] attributed
to Hesiod, and which, it is believed, was suggested by a Zodiac
temple[236] of the Chaldeans, imitations of which were to be found in
Egypt and elsewhere, will recall the reference to Draco,[237] as follows:—
“The scaly terror of a dragon coil’d
Full in the central field; unspeakable;
With eyes oblique, retorted, that aslant
Shot gleaming flame; his hollow jaw was fill’d
Dispersedly with jagged fangs of white,
Grim, unapproachable.”[238]
It is hardly to be inferred from this description, I may remark, that
the worship of Draco would be one of love. Yet, Rawlinson says: “The
stellar name of Hea was Kimmut; and it is suspected that in this aspect
he was identified with the constellation Draco, which is perhaps the
Kimmah[239] of Scripture.”[240] This is an interesting statement when
taken in connection with what has been already said about Hea. To the
Accadians and others the north was a favorable point, being the source of
cool, vivifying breezes.
But, whether from fear or not, Draco inspired wide-spread attention and
worship. Lillie remarks that the serpent of the “three precious gems” of
the Buddhist, the serpent, sun, and tree, the A. U. M., is Draco at the
pole. The Tria Ratna, or three precious symbols of the faith, have, in
the representation given, their earliest emblem, except, perhaps, the
swastika,[241] or cross, which was doubtless formed at one time of two
serpents.[242]
[Illustration: FIG. 9.—THE BUDDHIST TRIA RATNA.]
In the illustration, the serpent represents the male and the staff the
female or negative principle. It has been asserted that we have in it the
prototype of the caduceus of Hermes.
The assumption of the serpent as a totem,[243] or symbol, of a family
or tribe has been held—as, for example, by Mr. McLennan[244] and Sir
John Lubbock[245]—to afford an explanation of the origin and practice of
serpent-worship. This honor was no doubt accorded the reptile at a very
early period and in different parts of the world; and it is still done
by the Nagas of India and others. In speaking of Parium, a city of the
Troad, Strabo says: “It is here the story is related that the Ophiogeneis
have some affinity with the serpent tribe.... According to fable the
founder of the race of Ophiogeneis, a hero, was transformed from a
serpent into a man. He was, perhaps, one of the African Psylli.” The
power of curing by touch persons bitten by serpents[246] was claimed by
this tribe. David would seem to have belonged to the serpent family, as
appears from the name of his ancestor, Naasson; and it has been suggested
that the brazen serpent found by Hezekiah, in the Temple of Solomon, was
a symbol of it. The friendliness of David to the king of Ammon is thus
explained.[247] Speaking of rattlesnakes, it is said, in Miss Emerson’s
work, “These creatures were so highly esteemed that to have a serpent as
his totem elevated an Indian chief above his brothers.”[248]
The fact of the same word meaning both serpent and life has been believed
to cast light on the origin of the worship of serpents. After stating
that the reptile was always a symbol of life and health in Egypt and
other countries, the Abbé Pluche gives as the reason, “because among
most of the Eastern nations, as the Phœnicians, Hebrews, Arabians,
and others, with the language of which that of Egypt had an affinity,
the word _heve_ or _hava_ equally signifies the life and the serpent.
The name of _Him who is_, the great name of God, _Jov_ or _Jehova_,
thence draws its etymology. _Heve_, or the name of the common mother of
mankind, comes likewise from the same word. Life could not be painted,
but it might be marked out by the figure of the animal which bears its
name.”[249] According to Lenormant,[250] one of the generic names in
the Assyrian-Semitic tongue is _havon_, like the Arabian _hiyah_, both
derived from the root _hâvah_, to live. From the same root came the Latin
_ave_, a wish of good health, and also _ævum_, the life. The asp still
bears the name of _naja haje_.
It is interesting to observe that the American Indians, as well as
Eastern peoples, made use of the serpent as a symbol of life. The
belief that the animal had power over the fertilizing summer showers
was probably at the bottom of it, as well as its title to god of
fruitfulness. Says Dr. Brinton: “Because the rattlesnake, the lightning
symbol, is thus connected with the food of man, and itself seems
never to die, but annually to renew its youth, the Algonkins called
it ‘grandfather,’ and king of snakes. They feared to injure it. They
believed it could grant prosperous breezes or raise disastrous tempests.
Crowned with the lunar crescent, it was the constant symbol of life in
their picture-writing.”[251] In the language of the Algonkins and of the
Dakotas, the words _manito_ and _waken_, which express divinity in its
widest sense, also signify serpent.
Mr. Wake entertains the opinion that the mainspring of serpent-worship
was a belief that the animal was really the embodiment of a deceased
human being; or, in other words, that the worship was ancestral in
character. He says: “The serpent has been viewed with awe or veneration
from primeval times and almost universally as a re-embodiment of
a deceased human being; and as such there were ascribed to it the
attributes of life and wisdom and the power of healing.”[252]
But little, however, in what has been said throws much light on the main
point at issue, namely, why the serpent should be yielded worship. The
cause must be sought for, to some extent, in peculiarities of the animal
itself. And it has peculiarities enough. Remarkable in form and in mode
of locomotion, and in some species possessed of deadly venom, one might
well regard it with admiration and awe. Then, its longevity and apparent
power of renewing its age serve to make it a very extraordinary creature.
The opinion has been expressed[253] that its power to glide along without
limbs, like the heavenly bodies, was the reason why it was held to be
sacred. No doubt its remarkable power of motion in the absence of limbs
forcibly impressed the ancients.[254] Solomon himself said that one of
the four things he could not understand was “the way of a serpent upon a
rock.”[255]
Herbert Spencer maintains that the first step toward the worship of
serpents and other animals was the naming or, rather, nicknaming of men
after creatures to which they bore some points of resemblance. Thus, from
having apparently, like Holmes’s Elsie Venner, some of the qualities of a
snake, one might be compared with the animal, and so named after it. Then
the descendants, out of regard for their ancestor,[256] might take the
name, or, in other words, accept the snake as their totem.
Although the Æsculapian serpent was innocent, it was mostly a harmful
species which received worship. The asp of the Egyptians and the cobra
of the East Indians are decidedly venomous. Under the name of _uræus_
the asp was a symbol of royalty in ancient Egypt. Ebers makes Rameses
say: “My predecessors chose the poisonous _uræus_ as the emblem of
their authority, for we can cause death as quickly and as certainly
as the venomous snake.”[257] The American Indians were devoted to the
rattlesnake, which is extremely venomous. Thus, says Dr. Brinton: “The
rattlesnake was the species almost exclusively honored by the red race.
It is slow to attack, but venomous in the extreme, and possesses the
power of the basilisk to attract within its spring small birds and
squirrels.”[258] Evidently the worship of such reptiles must have been
inspired, in a measure at least, by fear. Still, it appears certain,
as the author just quoted believes, that, as employed to express the
divine element in atmospheric and other natural phenomena, it far more
frequently typified what was favorable and agreeable than the reverse.
Ebers gives it as his opinion that “mythological figures of snakes have
quite as often a benevolent as a malevolent signification.”[259]
A word must be said about the phallic explanation of the origin of
serpent-worship. Mr. Cox, an excellent writer on mythology, is friendly
to this theory. After speaking of the phallus as a symbol, he says:
“When we add that from its physical characteristics the Ashêrah, which
the Greeks called the phallus, suggested the emblem of the serpent, we
have the key to the tree- and serpent-worship.”[260] Beyond question, a
phallus-serpent comes frequently into view in studying mythology, but it
would be very hard to prove that every serpent met with had its prototype
in the phallus. It is to be regarded as beneficent, a life-giving power.
The Agathodæmon is frequently so represented.
Probably the possibility of charming serpents has had something to
do with the remarkable uses to which these animals have been put. A
person who could handle without danger a venomous reptile, and control
its actions at pleasure, might easily lead many to believe him to be
possessed of some miraculous power. Aaron resorted to this artifice when
he appeared before Pharaoh with his cataleptic serpent, in the form of a
rod.[261]
The reason just given seems better than the one Plutarch gives for the
association of the serpent with certain great men, when he says, in
his “Life of Cleomanes,” that it was from a belief that after death
evaporation of “the marrow”[262] produces serpents;[263] that the
ancients appropriated the serpent, rather than any other animal, to
heroes.
I believe it is vain to attempt to trace the origin of serpent-worship to
one and the same source. This appears plain when it is remembered that
some serpents represented good, while others stood for the opposite,
evil. The Bible furnishes a marked instance of contrasts: in one place
a serpent was used, as has been pointed out, as a symbol of God, or
Christ, while elsewhere one represents cunning, envy, lying, and even
“the devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world.”[264] In the
nature of things, one would expect the same species of reptile to
produce a very similar impression on primitive peoples everywhere. This,
probably, accounts largely for the resemblance to one another of most
serpent-legends. The different impressions produced by different species
would, to some extent, explain the unlike significance of serpent-symbols
among different peoples. The signification, however, was often of very
fanciful origin, as, for example, where a serpent in the form of a circle
symbolized eternity, or, rather, endless life.