The Good and Evil Serpent (177 page)

76
. See Foerster, “
,”
TDNT
3 (1964) 815–16.

77
. See Foerster, “
,”
TDNT
5 (1967) 566–71.

Appendix III

I am indebted to Professor Antonio De Simone for taking me to Pompeii (my fifth trip there), showing me some serpent images, and allowing me to use much of his research on serpents in the present appendix. Professor De Simone also gave me a copy of G. F. De Simone’s
Aristarchos
. L. Guglielmo helped me during my study of serpent images and symbols in Pompeii, Herculaneum, and the Archaeological Museum in Naples.

1
. The last major earthquake in Israel or Palestine was in 1033. On 18 January 749 a massive earthquake shook Palestine. It probably would have been recorded as 7 or 7.5 on the Richter scale. Recent excavations in Tiberias have revealed a record in stone of that earthquake. Now we know that from Tiberias to Jericho the earth moved northward about 1.5 meters, and all at once. In Jerusalem thousands died. The devastation was so severe that a Syrian priest claimed a village near Mount Tabor moved 6 kilometers. The effect was felt elsewhere; for example, a Coptic priest in Alexandria reported that support beams in houses shifted. Many claimed that they saw tidal waves in the Mediterranean. The whole Jordan Rift Valley remains an active fault.

2
. N. Purcell, “Pompeii,”
OCD
(3rd ed. 1996) 1214–15; the quotation is on p. 1214.

3
. This Appendix contains my own reflections after forty years of working on Qumran texts and realia and five trips to Pompeii, once leading a BAS seminar there. Hence, only a very few references will be provided. For bibliographical information, once can easily turn to the many entries in the leading encyclopedias.

4
. See P. Caputo et al.,
Cuma e ilsuo Parco Archeologico
(Rome, 1996).

5
. See J. W. Hayes, “ ‘Pompeian-Red’ Ware (Figs. 60.7–16),” in A. D. Tushingham, ed.,
Excavations in Jerusalem 1961–1967
(Toronto, 1985) vol. 1, p. 185.

6
. See G. K. Boyce,
Corpus of the Lararia of Pompeii
(Rome, 1937), and Boyce, “Significance of the Serpents on Pompeian House Shrines,”
AJA
46 (1942) 13–22. F. V. M. Cumont, “La
Bona Dei
et ses serpents,”
MEFRA
49 (1932) 1–5. D. G. Orr, “Learning from
Lararia:
Note on the Household Shrines of Pompeii,”
Studia in Honor of W. F. Jashemski
(New Rochelle, N.Y., 1988) pp. 293–99. Th. Frohlich, “Pompejanische Lararienbilder,”
AntW
26 (1995) 203–10. R. A. Tybout, “Domestic Shrines and ‘Popular Painting’: Style and Social Context,”
JRA
9 (1996) 358–74.

7
. A. De Simone gave me the following list of
larari
with serpent images: I-16–2; I-7–11; I-7–11,18; I-8–8,1; I-8–10,1; I-8–17,3; I-9–1,8; I-10–7; I-10–18,9; I-11–10,1; I-11,10. 8; I-11–15,10; I-12–4,7; I-12–8,6; I-12–9,7; I-12–15,5; I-12–16,2; I-13–2,17; I-13–11. 5 and 6; I-16–3,7; I-16–4, 2; II-1–8,1; VI-16–15; V-2-D; VII-3–13.

8
. Cf. Fig. 36 earlier in this book.

9
. For a good color photograph, see E. De Carolis,
Gods and Heroes in Pompeii
, trans. L.-A. Touchette (Rome, 2001) p. 63. Also, compare Figs. 54 and 65 in this book.

10
. Also see the ithyphallic Hermes (Mercury) depicted with a caduceus; it is a shop sign in Pompeii. See the color photograph in S. De Caro, ed.,
The Secret Cabinet in the National Archaeological Museum of Naples
(Naples, 2000) p. 37.

11
. I am grateful to De Simone for discussions on serpent symbolism at Pompeii.

12
. The guard, Manzo Lanzaro, pointed out these large images of serpents to me, and helped me study some
larari
.

13
. I am grateful to the Ministero per I Beni e le Attività Culturali del Museo Archeologico, Napoli, and in particular to the graciousness offered by Dott.ssa Mariarosaria Borriello.

14
. For photographs of some of the serpent jewelry and frescoes, see A. d’Ambrosio et al., eds.,
Storie da un’eruzione: Pompei Ercolano Oplontis
(Milan, 2003). See esp. the following: gold armbands or bracelets (pp. 50, 141, 147, 207
[bis]
, 254), silver bracelets (pp. 130, 457), silver rings (pp. 265, 270, 282, 314), gold rings (pp. 164, 166, 170, 171, 271, 272), frescoes (pp. 236, 392); Agathadaimon (p. 287), and Hermes (Mercury) with caduceus (282).

Appendix IV

1
. Tertullian [text incorrectly attributed to him],
Against All Heresies
chap. 2;
The Ante Nicene Fathers ANF
3, p. 650.

2
. My translation; see Pseudo-Tertullian,
Against All Heresies
, chap. 2;
ANF
3, p. 650.

3
. Section 3. 37, 1,1–3,1. See F. Williams, trans.,
The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis
, 2 vols. (Leiden, 1994) vol. 1, pp. 241–43.

4
. Hippolytus,
Haer
. 5.12;
ANF
5, p. 63 (italics mine).

5
. Italics mine.

6
. Hippolytus,
Haer
. 5.12 (italics mine).

7
. Hippolytus,
Haer
. 5.12;
ANF
5, p. 64.

8
. Hippolytus,
Haer
. 5.12; trans. J. H. MacMahon, “Hippolytus: The Refutation of All Heresies,”
ANF
5, p. 64 (italics mine).

9
. John Chrysostom,
Commentary on Saint John, the Apostle and Evangelist: Homilies 1–47
, trans. T. A. Goggin (New York, 1957) p. 262.

10
. Chrysostom,
Commentary on Saint John: Homilies 1–47
, p. 262.

11
. Chrysostom,
Commentary on Saint John
, pp. 262–63.

12
. Chrysostom,
Commentary on Saint John
, p. 263.

13
. Justin,
Dial
. 91; trans. A. C. Coxe in
ANF
1, p. 245.

14
.
ANF
1, p. 245, note 4.

15
.
Adv. Haer
. 4.2.7; trans. Coxe in
ANF
1, p. 465.

16
. A. P. Carleton,
John Shines Through Augustine
(New York, 1961) p. 75.

17
. See his tractate on 1Jn, Tractate 3.2: “Was not his resurrection announced to the men by the women so that the serpent might be defeated by [his own] stratagem reversed?” Augustine,
Tractates on the Gospel of John 112–24; Tractates on the First Epistle of John
, trans. J. W. Rettig (Washington, 1995) p. 160.

18
. For the plates of all these cryptograms see W. O. Moeller,
The Mithraic Origin and Meanings of the Rotas-Sator Square
(Leiden, 1973).

19
. In his excellent article, D. Fishwick habitually refers to the Rotas-Sator Square as a rebus. See his “On the Origin of the Rotas-Sator Square,”
HTR
57 (1964) 39–53; see esp. pp. 40, 43, 45, 51, 53.

20
. See also the crosses on the right margin of the Latin on the leather inscription found perhaps at Saxony. See the photograph that faces the title page of Moeller’s
The Mithraic Origin
. D. Fishwick also points out how absurd the attempt is to explain the cryptograph as a Christian creation. He offers the suggestion that the cryptograph is originally Jewish, but that raises many problems, not the least of which is the use of Latin to represent “Pater Noster,” and the appearance of the cryptogram in Britain but not in Palestine. See Fishwick’s article in the
HTR
57 (1964) 39–53.

21
. See E. Strommenger and M. Hirmer,
The Art of Mesopotamia
(London, 1964) Plates 7, 8, 34, 40, 157.

22
. See the comments by E. Dinkler in
Signum Crucis
(Tübingen, 1967) esp. pp. 1–54.

23
. See U. Ernst, “Satorformel,”
Evangelisches Kirchenlexikon
(1996) vol. 5, cols. 58–60.

24
. Moeller,
The Mithraic Origin
, pp. 35–36; H. Last, “The Rotas Sator Square: Present Position and Future Prospects,”
JTS
N.S. 31 (1952) 92–97; Fishwick in
HTR
57 (1964) 40–41; C. D. Gunn, “The Sator-Arepo Palindrome: A New Inquiry into the Composition of an Ancient Word Square” (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1969).

25
. W. Baines, “The Rotas-Square: A New Investigation,”
NTS
33 (1987) 469–76.

26
. See the study by A. Maiuri, “Sulla datazione de ‘Quadrato magico’ o cripto-gramma cristiano a Pompei,”
Rendiconti della Accademia di Archeologia, Lettere ed Arti
[Naples] 28 (1953) 101–11.

27
. There is an alleged “cross” image left on the wall of a house at Herculaneum. Is it merely the backing for something that once hung on the wall? An examination of the area reveals that the nails are at the top and bottom; a shelf or heavy object would have been anchored with nails on the ends of the horizontal bar. The plastered bench before “the cross” is identical to home shrines. Finally, the house is where non-Romans would have lived. Do these suggestions indicate that a cross was hung on a wall? If so, does that fact indicate the people who lived in the room were “Christians”? Without any doubt there were Christians in Rome in the sixties since Paul’s letter to the Romans proves that conclusion, but proof of Christians in one city is not evidence of their existence in another.

28
. The “cross” shape recently found at Bethsaida is interesting, and I await full publication for an assessment of it. It may, however, be only a cross shape. This cross appears on the cover of the first volume of the Bethsaida excavations. See R. Arav and R. A. Freund,
Bethsaida: A City by the North Shore of the Sea of Galilee
(Kirksville, Mo., 1995).

29
. Rev 1:8, 21:6, 22:13. I am grateful to Fishwick for some of these insights. See Fishwick,
HTS
57 (1964) 44–46.

30
. A simple example of a palindrome in English is “Mom” and “Dad.” The play with words is typical of many segments of society. Since our youth, most of us have heard that “evil” is “live” spelled backward.

31
. Baines: “[T]he Rotas square contains one otherwise unknown word (AREPO).”
NTS
33 (1987) 470. Fishwick: “AREPO is simply the reverse of OPERA” which is otherwise meaningless.
HTS
57 (1964) 51.

32
. See Lewis and Short,
Harpers’ Latin Dictionary
, p. 164, and
TLL
, vol. 2, col. 634.

33
. Pausanias,
Descr
. 39.3. For the text and translation see Edelstein,
Asclepius
, vol. 1, p. 361.

34
. Ovid,
Metam
. 15.654–59. For text and translation, see Edelstein,
Asclepius
, vol. 1, p. 361.

35
. Pliny,
Nat
. 29.4 (22) 72. For the text and translation, see Edelstein,
Asclepius
, vol. 1, p. 362.

36
. Xenophon,
Cyn
. 1.6; for text and translation, see Edelstein,
Asclepius
, vol. 1, p. 112.

37
. Julianus,
In Helium Regem
155B; for the Greek and English translation, see Edelstein,
Asclepius
, vol. 1, pp. 151–52. Capitalization mine.

38
. Aelian,
Nat. an
. 10.9. For the Greek and translation, see Edelstein,
Asclepius
, vol. 1, p. 265. Capitalization mine.

39
. Suidas,
Lexicon
, ad loc. cit. For the Greek and English translation, see Edelstein,
Asclepius
, vol. 1, p. 265. Capitalization mine.

40
. Edelstein,
Asclepius
, vol. 2, p. 77.

41
.
Epistula ad Marcellam
7. For the Greek text and translation, see Edelstein,
Asclepius
, vol. 1, pp. 111–12.