The Good and Evil Serpent (38 page)

Figure 57.
Zeus or Jupiter Enthroned. Roman Period. Courtesy of the Hermitage. JHC

Chnoubis

On magical gems a serpent figure appears; it is named Chnoubis
.
²⁴⁶
The origin of the myth is Egyptian. In Elephantine, from which so many Aramaic papyri have been recovered, Chnoubis was hailed as the king of the first cataract of the Nile. Note the report in Strabo: Elephantine “is an island in the Nile … and a city therein … has a temple of Cnuphis
²⁴⁷
The gems date from the second to the fourth century
CE
. One gem with Chnoubis in the middle has written around its edges the names Gabriel, Ouriel, and Souriel. On the back appears the name Adonai. The first three are the names of the archangels; the back contains the Hebrew name “Lord,” which is to be pronounced when God’s own name (the ineffable Tetragrammaton) appears in a text, and in place of it.

What does this serpent god symbolize? It is far from clear. Perhaps it is associated with the Egyptian god Khnoum and has some solar meaning.

Zeus

Zeus, the greatest of the Greek gods, is originally the god of the sky. As Greeks wondered about the stars and the universe they accorded more honor to this sky god. In the words of Dion Chrysostomos, Zeus is “the giver of all good things, the Father, the Saviour, the Keeper of mankind.”
²⁴⁸

Zeus is often represented as having the features of a serpent. He is frequently shown with a serpent, as in the sixth-century
BCE
Laconian vasepainting of an eagle eating Prometheus’ liver.
²⁴⁹

While Hermes is portrayed almost always with a caduceus and Asclepius with a serpent wound around a staff, Zeus in not typically shown with serpents. When humans turned their attention to the earth, themselves, health, healing, and youthful regeneration, they elevated Asclepius until he was virtually the supreme god; then Zeus appears as Zeus-Asclepius.
²⁵⁰

Apollo

Apollo, the god of music and poetry, is the twin of Artemis, the huntress. He is the son of Leto and Zeus. Like Zeus, Apollo only rarely appears with a serpent. Aelian (actually Aelianus; 170#x2013;235
CE
) reports a festival in honor of Apollo; it does feature serpents. The account deserves reporting in full:

The people of Epirus and all strangers sojourning there, beside any other sacrifice to Apollo, on one day in the year hold their chief festival in his honour with solemnity and great pomp. There is a grove dedicated to the god, and round about it a precinct, and in the enclosure are Serpents
, and these self-same Serpents are the pets of the god. Now the priestess, who is a virgin, enters unaccompanied, bringing food for the Serpents. And the people of Epirus maintain that the Serpents are sprung from the Python at Delphi. If, as the priestess approaches, they look graciously upon her and take the food with eagerness, it is agreed that they are indicating a year of prosperity and of freedom from sickness. If however they scare her and refuse the pleasant food she offers, then the Serpents are foretelling the reverse of the above, and that is what the people of Epius expect.
²⁵¹

The account by Aelian raises many questions: What if the serpents bite and kill the virgin? What if the serpents have already been fed, or have not eaten in months? Historians and sociologists, as well as others, would like to know if the account was taken literally and believed, or if it is like the humorous watching of the groundhog’s shadow in the United States.

Mithra

The worship of Mithra used to be considered only a military religion, but now we know that Mithraites built shrines and thus worshipped in major cities, including ancient Ostia and Rome.
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Originating in the East, this religion was transformed in the Greek and Roman world and became very popular. Mithra, the all-conquering sun god, is usually depicted slaying a bull.

Sometimes Mithra’s struggle against the bull is aided by a dog and a serpent (in other images they are both drinking the blood of the bull).
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The serpent in Mithraism is thus depicted as passive or active.
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It is often shown drinking not only the blood but sometimes also the semen of the slaughtered bull.
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Serpent symbolism in Mithraism contrasts with both the general Old Testament view of the serpent and with Zoroastrianism in which the serpent is an incarnation of the evil Ahriman. The devotees of Mithra perceived the serpent as an assistant of Mithra.

The rejuvenating powers of the serpent would also have been noted and found attractive to the followers of Mithra since they, unlike the Zoroastrians, believed in a cycle of births, as we know from the Avestan accounts and as Porphyrius reported (in
De abstinentia
4.16). Furthermore, it is certain that the serpent was a positive symbol in Mithraism; it sometimes is associated with the zodiac and curls around the two bears, Ursus major and Ursus minor.
²⁵⁶
As S. Insler has indicated, Mithraism in Italy and the West became primarily associated with astronomy and astrology. These separate concepts in modernity were not usually distinguishable in antiquity; that is, western Mithraism was essentially an astral cult, “with its theology founded upon the mysteries seen in the sky and their effects upon the course of time.”
²⁵⁷
The connection with time, chronology, and serpent iconography will be obvious to the reader by now.

That Mithraism was a threat to Christianity needs no demonstration. On the one hand, the triumphant Christians destroyed many of the Mithraea and forced them to cease about the end of the fourth century
CE
. On the other hand, they co-opted the solar force of Mithraism by assigning the birth of Jesus to December 25, the birthday of Mithra. It is conceivable that another cult, one known as Deus sol invictus—which celebrated the supreme deity the sun, had its zenith during the reign of Emperor Elagabalus (218#x2013;222
CE
), and celebrated the “rebirth” of the sun on December 25—was even more influential, at least at times and in some places, than Mithraism.
²⁵⁸
One must be careful to focus on the time and place of possible influence from either cult; Mithra, moreover, as Vermaseren shows, was often identified with Saturn.
²⁵⁹

Abraxas

Abraxas is a demon well known from early Christian texts. It is also often found within Proto-Gnostic works and in Gnosticism. It is pictured with a torso of a man, the head of a rooster, and two serpents as feet.
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Asclepius

We now come to the Greek and later Roman god who more than any other god is associated with the serpent. While serpents are customarily shown with Hermes, they form a caduceus and usually the serpents are only stylized. Asclepius (Greek: Asclepios, Latin: Aesculapius)
²⁶¹
appears as a full serpent and is almost always portrayed with a serpent entwined around his staff.

Asclepius appears first in literature as a human, and then he is elevated to be a god. In Homer’s
Iliad
(2.729), which was written sometime before the seventh century
BCE
,
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Asclepius is mentioned in the catalogue of the Achaean army as the father of Machaon and Podaleirios (Latin: Podalirius).
²⁶³
Homer’s portrayal of Asclepius as a human physician is altered by Hesiod, who refers to him as semi-divine, or as a god.
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In fact, it seems that Hesiod is the first one to refer to Asclepius as a healing god.

By 500
BCE
, Greek hymns appeared celebrating a god of healing.
²⁶⁵
Asclepius, however, was not the only god of healing in Greece. In principle, Greeks assumed that every god could perform healings.
²⁶⁶

According to legends, Asclepius dies when Zeus destroys him with a thunderbolt because he had raised the dead (see Pliny,
Natural History
).
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In ancient lore antedating even Homer, Asclepius was perhaps originally a deity—an earth deity or earth daimon—who healed the sick. His two means were: first, dreams that informed the one asleep of the proper means and methods for recovery of health; second, incubation.
²⁶⁸
The devotees (the incubants) performed some rituals to purify themselves, then they entered the temple of the god for periods up to more than one year. The object was to sleep in the god’s temple and receive information, usually a cure, through a dream. Incubation was especially central to the Asclepian cult. There were Asclepian shrines or temples for incubation at Epidaurus, but also at Cos, Lebene, Pergamum, Rome, and Smyrna. Peloponnesians had a penchant for building an Asklepieion, as we know from a recent survey by S. G. Stauropoulos.
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Clearly, the most important Asklepieion was at Epidaurus (see
Fig. 59
).
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This temple was magnificent. The setting is also remote and relaxing. It is far from the commercialism of Corinth to the north, close to the sea, and quietly nestled beneath some verdant hills. The temple in Epidaurus was supported by plenteous springs and dense vineyards; hence, Homer could call it
ambeloessa
, “vine-clad.”
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The temple is only one of the many buildings in the vast complex at Epidaurus.
²⁷²

There were also monumental temples at Cos, Pergamum, and Corinth.
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Devotees, especially when healed, left a votive offering, usually in the form of the part of the body that had been healed, ostensibly, by Asclepius: no tably a breast, a phallus, an arm, a leg, a foot. The votive offerings do not come interpreted, and so we need to admit that there is much we do not and cannot know. M. Lang rightly points out this fact: “Although complete and parts of arms are very well represented among the votives at Corinth, there is very little evidence concerning the kinds of infirmity for the cure of which they were given as thank-offerings.”
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H. Avalos corrects the view of the Edelsteins; he is convinced that “doctors” in the Asklepieion did perform surgeries.
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