The Good and Evil Serpent (101 page)

Response:
Many mainline Christians in the second and third centuries
CE
thought the Fourth Gospel was heretical. The terms “orthodoxy” and “heresy” should not be labels that adequately define thinking within and on the borders of Christianity before the promulgation of orthodoxy in the fourth century.
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In fact, some leading scholars today have judged the Fourth Gospel to be quasi-Docetic or to preserve a naïve Docetism (cf. Kásemann).

3. The portrayal of Asclepius with a serpent and as a serpent, which was dominant in the first century
CE
, would make it unlikely that the Fourth Evangelist would depict Jesus as a serpent, especially since there was tension between the devotees of Asclepius and the followers of Christ.

Response:
The tension between Asclepius and Christ does not appear before the late second century
CE
, at the earliest. There are no innuendoes in the Johannine writings of any tension from those who worshipped Asclepius. In fact, one should contemplate that not only Samaritans and Essenes were probably in the Johannine circle or school; some Greeks in it (cf. 12:20) may have once been devoted to Asclepius. They would have joined the “new movement” because they found a far better “story” or convincing gospel. For them, and for many others, the serpent was sacred and a symbol of life and eternal life, not only among the Asclepiads but among the devotees of Athena, Apollo, Zeus, and others. Thus, the serpent was a most appropriate symbol for the Jesus who said, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die” (Jn 11:25–26 [NRSV]).

4. The Greek of John 3:14–15 does not state that Jesus is a serpent. This insight is significant since the Fourth Evangelist habitually declares, especially through words attributed to Jesus, that he is the Lamb of God, Rabbi (and Rabboni), the prophet, Light, the Shepherd, the Way, the Truth, the Life, the Son; and he implies rather directly that Jesus is the Son of Man and the Messiah.
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Response:
This insight is correct. The Fourth Evangelist does not declare that Jesus is a serpent or even “like Moses’ serpent.” An ophidian Christology is not proclaimed by the Fourth Evangelist. Yet, he attributes the words that reveal the Son of Man is parallel to Moses’ serpent to Jesus.
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He does not proclaim that Jesus is a serpent or should be symbolized as a serpent. He uses a simile; Jesus is like the serpent raised up by Moses, at God’s command, in the wilderness. Jesus is not a serpent; he is like Moses’ upraised serpent of copper.

Like Moses’ serpent, Jesus brings life, even eternal life, to all who look up to and believe in him who is from above. The metaphor is clear: In the Book of Numbers, sin is associated with poisonous snakes, but salvation comes with commitment to God represented by the image of the upraised serpent. Intimations of idolatrous meaning are erased by the memory of Hezekiah’s reform and smashing of the Nechushtan; the serpent is not to be worshipped. Trust is not put in Moses or in the image; trust is placed in God’s promise that all who look up to the raised serpent on the stake may live and not die. The divine sanction is accomplished by the Evangelist’s placing of the words in Jesus’ mouth. Perhaps the Fourth Evangelist is appealing to those who in his community and region are imagining Jesus as Moses’ serpent; some of them could have been former devotees of Asclepius, Apollo, or Athena—to name only a few deities who were portrayed as serpent gods or gods with serpents. The Evangelist depends on Jewish exegesis of Numbers 21 because, as Jesus said, “The Scripture cannot be annulled” (10:35).

5. The exegesis presented in this study is weakened by the observation that the “serpent” appears in the Fourth Gospel only in John 3:14, and even in this passage the image is not developed.

Response:
That is a caveat found in the preceding pages. The simile is introduced; Jesus is an antitype of Moses’ upraised serpent. The Fourth Evangelist does not seem interested in developing the typology. He thus probably inherited this tradition. Does it derive ultimately from some teaching of Jesus not recorded elsewhere?
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Is it a part of the early kerygmata in the Palestinian Jesus Movement? Does it provide a window into the kerygma and didache found in the Johannine school as Jewish scribes and sages searched the Scripture to prove that Jesus is the one who fulfills all prophecies and typologies? I am convinced that this latter possibility is more likely than the others.

Finally, we may return to the enigmatic report in Plato’s
Phaedo
that Socrates, on his deathbed, ordered a student to offer a cock to Asclepius. Earlier we drew attention to this incongruous aspect of Socrates’ life. What could it mean?

A rather scathing explanation was offered by Lactantius (c. 240-c. 320). He judged Socrates’ actions to be not those of a wise man but of a deranged mind. Note his words in the famous
Divine Institutes:

For who can dare to find fault with the superstitions of the Egyptians, when Socrates confirmed them at Athens by his authority? But was it not a mark of consummate vanity, that before his death he asked his friends to sacrifice for him a cock which he had vowed to Aesculapius? … I should consider him most mad if he had died under the influence of disease. But since he did this in his sound mind, he who thinks that he was wise is himself of unsound mind.
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Such a critique reflects more the “Christianity” of Lactantius—the
Divine Institutes
were replies to attacks against Christianity by a philosopher—than the motives behind Socrates’ apparently incongruous actions on his deathbed.

One of the best explanations of Socrates’ instruction is provided by Ter-tullian.
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In his
Apology
, Tertullian offered the explanation that Socrates customarily said: “ ‘If the demon grant permission.’ Yet he, too, though in denying the existence of your divinities he had a glimpse of the truth, at his dying ordered a cock to be sacrificed to Aesculapius, I believe in honour of his father for Apollo pronounced Socrates the wisest of men.”
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For approximately two thousand years, when the serpent is seen in the text, two categorically different interpretations of John 3:14–15 have been offered. One regards the serpent only as symbolic of evil. The other views the serpent as symbolic of life. Both frequently placard Moses’ serpent as a typology of Christ. Four fourth-century authors who should help us understand the proper exegesis have been chosen to make this point: Ephrem Syrus (c. 306–373), Cyril of Jerusalem (c. 315–387), Gregory Nazianzus (329/30–389/90), and Ambrose (c. 339–397).

Ephrem Syrus, under the influence of the Fourth Gospel, perceived the parallel between Jesus’ cross and the serpent.
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In his
Hymns on the Nativity
, Ephrem offers this exegesis and hermeneutic: “His cross would eat the serpent up that had eaten Adam and Eve. Moses saw the uplifted serpent that had cured the bites of asps, and he looked to see Him who would heal the ancient serpent’s wound.”
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The link between Christ and the serpent is also stressed in the exegesis of John 3:14–15 by Cyril of Jerusalem. In his
Catechetical Lectures
, Cyril presents an interpretation of John 3:14–15 clarifying the comparison as focused not on the verb, “to lift up,” but on the serpent as a typology of Christ: “This was the figure which Moses completed by fixing the serpent to a cross, that whoso had been bitten by the living serpent, and looked to the brazen serpent, might be saved by believing. Does then the brazen serpent save when crucified, and shall not the Son of God incarnate save when crucified also?”
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The paradigmatic opposite interpretation of Ephrem and Cyril is presented by Gregory of Nazianzus. In his
The Second Oration on Easter
, Gregory claims that the serpent is not a type of Christ because it was so evil it deserved to be destroyed. Note his apparent insensitivity to the wide range of serpent symbology:

But that brazen serpent was hung up as a remedy for the biting serpent, not as a type of Him that suffered for us, but as a contrast; and it saved those that looked upon it, not because they believed it to live, but because it was killed, and killed with it the powers that were subject to it, being destroyed as it deserved. And what is the fitting epitaph for it from us? “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” Thou art overthrown by the Cross; thou art slain by Him who is the Giver of life; thou art without breath, dead, without motion, even though thou keepest the form of a serpent lifted up on high on a pole.
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A similar exegesis of John 3 was provided by Ambrose, who subsequently influenced Augustine. In his
Of the Holy Spirit
,
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Ambrose offered the following interpretation that reflects a preoccupation with the negative image of the serpent:

And well did the Lord ordain that by the lifting up of the brazen
serpent
the wounds of those who were bitten should be healed; for the brazen
serpent
is a type of the Cross; for although in His flesh Christ was lifted up, yet in Him was the Apostle crucified to the world and the world to him; for he says: “The world hath been crucified unto me, and I unto the world.”(1) So the world was crucified in its allurements, and therefore not a real but a brazen
serpent
was hanged; because the Lord took on Him the likeness of a sinner, in the truth. Indeed, of His Body, but without the truth of sin, that imitating a
serpent
through the deceitful appearance of human weakness, having laid aside the slough of the flesh, He might destroy the cunning of the true
serpent
. And therefore in the Cross of the Lord, which came to man’s help in avenging temptation, I, who accept the medicine of the Trinity, recognize in the wicked the offence against the Trinity.
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The verbosity should not camouflage the fact that the serpent symbolizes sin, weakness, and the Liar.
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Ephrem Syrus and Cyril of Jerusalem comprehended the typology I am convinced was intended by the Fourth Evangelist: the serpent is a type of the Son in the Fourth Gospel. Unfortunately, modern commentators either have been blind to the serpent symbolism that expresses the masterful insights in John 3:13–16 or have followed Gregory and Ambrose. Perhaps more now will see the wisdom and perceptions of the Fourth Evangelist as Cyril and Ephrem did.

SUMMARY

We began this study with questions that arose from focused reflections on John 3:14–15. Our central question may be rephrased: “How, why, and in what ways, if at all, is Jesus compared to Moses’ upraised serpent?” We observed that the commentators on the Fourth Gospel failed to raise this question adequately and to explore the meaning of serpent symbolism in antiquity. Over one hundred years ago, commentators placed the Greek text of the Fourth Gospel on their desks and surrounded themselves with ancient sources. They asked: “What did the text mean in the first century?” In recent decades, the computer is placed on the desk. The Greek text is to the left and commentators are customarily surrounded by other commentaries. The question has changed; scholars ask: “What have others recently been saying about this text?” Commentaries now are too often “rush jobs” to meet publishers’ deadlines. Far too often, regurgitation of others’ thoughts replaces creative fresh reflection on what an author and his or her audience would have imagined a text to mean or suggest.

By focusing on one text and one central question and by exploring serpent symbolism, we obtained many surprising insights and were challenged by the creative mind of the Fourth Evangelist. We have seen how normal images of snakes were in antiquity and that the serpent symbolized, inter alia, life and eternal life. The serpent was a perfect image for portraying the theology of the Fourth Evangelist. In the Fourth Gospel we do not confront “one of the strangest images for Jesus Christ in Scripture.”
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What are the significant discoveries of our exploration into John 3:1316? Here is a summary of the major insights.

The intended thought is not only “to lift up.” The Fourth Evangelist stresses the descent of the Son of Man (3:13) and his ascent again to his Father. In this narrative context, the lifting up of a serpent on a pole symbolizes Jesus on the cross.

The “as” and “so” construction of John 3:14 defines two clauses. The adverbs reveal the Evangelist’s thought: “[A]s Moses lifted up the serpent … so it is necessary for the Son of Man to be lifted up.”

The impersonal verb “it is necessary” does not refer only to the crucifixion. The Fourth Evangelist uses this construction to refer to the fulfillment of God’s purpose revealed in Scripture. It thus refers to both crucifixion and resurrection (20:9; cf. also Mk 8:31).
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Thus, serpent symbolism is apparent in 3:14; the serpent is the primary symbol for signifying new or renewed life (Pos. 26), and unending or eternal life (3:15 and 3:16; cf. Pos. 27).