64 Fables and Prejudices regarding Serpents. 



which attest that the idea of the serpent as the evil principle 

 prevailed from the most remote antiquity. The serpent is 

 represented as the cause of the first transgression and fall of 

 man ; and Arimanes, assuming the form of a serpent, seeks 

 in vain to overcome his antagonist Orosmandes, who repre- 

 sents the good principle in the idealism of the ancient Per- 

 sians. 



It is believed that the ancient Greeks made choice of the 

 allegory of the great serpent killed by the arrows of Apollo 

 to represent the pestilential vapours, emanating from the 

 marshy slime which covered the earth after the deluge, or 

 after annual inundations, and which could only be dissipated 

 by the rays of the sun ; afterwards, this Python became the 

 attribute of Apollo and his priestesses at Delphi, and it sub- 

 sequently served for the emblem of Foretelling and Divination. 

 Analogous circumstances probably gave rise to the fable of 

 the Lernsean Hydra, exterminated by the labours of Hercules 

 and his companion Tolas. Among the ancient Egyptians, the 

 serpent was the symbol of fertility. They represented, under 

 the form of a serpent, inclosed by a circle, or entwined around 

 a globe, the Cneph of their cosmogony, who is the same as 

 Ammon, or the Agathodemon, the spirit or soul of creation, 

 the principle of all that lives, who governs and enlightens the 

 world.* The priests of that people kept in the temples living 

 serpents ; and when dead, interred them in those sanctuaries 

 of superfitition.f 



As an emblem of Prudence and of Circumspection, the ser- 

 pent was the constant attribute of ^Esculapius, and the same 

 veneration was paid to those reptiles, as to the father or the 

 God of medicine and magic. J The Ophites were Christian 

 sectaries, who, towards the second century of our era, estab- 

 lished a worship which was particularly distinguished from 

 that of the Gnostics in this, that they adored a living serpent ; 

 conforming themselves to the ancient traditions of their race, 

 they regarded that animal as the image of Wisdom, and of 



* Eusebii, Pred. Evang., 33 ; Horopollo, ap. i. 2 ; Creutzer, Symb. L. i, 507 

 and 824. 



t ^Elian, xvii. 5; Herodotus, ii, 74. 

 } Pausanius, ii. 26-28. 



