The Good and Evil Serpent (45 page)

Tertullian (c. 160#x2013;c. 240
CE
), as a Christian, could abide by none of this. He thus declared that Socrates did have a demon, and that it was evil.
⁴²⁶
This kind of damnation is what one might expect when a religion moves from a Jewish, prophetic, charismatic Jesus, to a Carthaginian lawyer who has mastered every rhetorical device, castigates his adversaries relentlessly, and writes works that usually begin with the prefix “Anti.” With Tertullian’s lead, Christians “baptized” the demon as only “demonic.” The sad and misrepresentative claim that only through Christ can one reach God, or know anything about God, so typical of Tertullian (
Cui deus cognitus sine Christo
? [
De Anima
I.4), has fortunately been left behind as archaic in modern missiology.

In Greek and Roman antiquity, Orpheus is often seen with harp and with all the animals, including the serpent.
⁴²⁷
When the Christians copied this image, they frequently omitted the serpent from the picture.
⁴²⁸
Likewise, the serpent became eventually portrayed as evil and as Satan, as we saw at the outset.

Before the birth of Christianity, the lion and the serpent both represented kingship, power, and divinity. After 325
CE
the iconography was reinterpreted. The serpent denoted evil, and the lion was there to kill it. As E. R. Goodenough stated in his
Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period
, when a woman appears with a serpent or as a serpent on amulets,

her association with a snake, or the fact that a snake can take her place altogether, indicates that the design may have represented, at least for some people, the warfare of spirit versus flesh, since for both Philo and many early Christians the snake of Eden, Eve, and woman in general, interchangeably symbolized sexual pleasure, and thereby fleshly pleasure par excellence. That the destruction of this, or victory over it, is the essence of salvation and the chief work of the Christian savior is an idea which, while not “official,” was always, as it still is, widely current. From this point of view it is indifferent whether the cavalier, or St. George, kills a woman, a snake, or both.
⁴²⁹

In summary, we have explored how ophidian or anguine symbolism was pervasive in the Greek and Roman world. The serpent as symbol was also widely appreciated in Persia, Egypt, and elsewhere. The serpent denoted not only evil and death but also, and more prevalently, good and life, as well as other positive meanings, especially, health, healing, and rejuvenation.

It is not easy to ascertain the various meanings of an ophidian or anguine symbol. We have acknowledged the need not to delimit the possible meanings of serpent symbolism and not to read our own concepts into it. A serpent might represent a threat or danger, but it also—more likely—denoted a goddess or some concept such as divinity, life, health, healing, beauty, and new life. The artist might have chosen one or several meanings. The one who purchased the symbol, or those who saw it, were free to add additional meanings to the iconography. The symbol might have meant at the same time something evil and something good. Serpent iconography, as indicated previously, often confronts us with a possible double entendre.

One final word needs to be said regarding serpent symbolism and ancient culture. By the time of Socrates, the masses yearned for any god; their need for a relationship with a god did not wane when the gods of Olympus failed to meet their needs. The one remaining god of influence was the one whom they had experienced and who provided health, healing, and a promise of a renewed life.
⁴³⁰
That god was Asclepius, who was symbolized with or as a serpent. Did not the intellectuals, even some skeptics, feel his gravitational pull? What about the great philosophers? Recall the last words of Socrates, as his body lost its warmth: “Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt?”
⁴³¹

The study of the symbolic meaning of John 3:14—and other biblical texts with ophidian symbolism—benefits from reflections on serpent symbolism. This perspective must be extended to include all world cultures and encompass all images and texts from prehistoric times.
¹
The preceding analysis proves that the snake, serpent, and dragon constitute one complex symbology that is a prevalent and pervasive theme. We have traced serpent symbolism from at least 40,000
BCE
and in mythologies on all continents.
²

Recently, carvings of snakes on rocks near Mitzpeh Ramon and the Adid mountain (or Karkom) in southern Israel have been found. They are clearly ancient works of art, maybe tens of thousands of years old, but the meaning of the serpent images is presently unknown.
³

A fascination with the serpent is a common dimension of human consciousness and expression. This commonality is most likely not so much due to influences of one culture on another or to some unfathomed and primordial structuralism. It results from the shared commonality of all humans. Recently, a group of hikers in Zion National Park, Utah, confronted by a large and rather handsome rattlesnake, tended to concur with a timeless and boundless sentiment: “That is so cool! I’ve never seen one of these things outside a zoo before.”
⁴

We have seen the image of the serpent often mixed with human features or with those of other animals. Despite the claims of misinformed professors,
⁵
some snakes have legs, physically and iconographically (see
Fig. 27
). A serpent may be imagined with ears and a bird’s beak.
⁶
The serpent appears as the tail of a dog or a lion, and as part of a lion or bull. The snake, realistically or with mythic features, also appears as a monster. Men and Giants are widely shown with anguipedes. An Egyptian god, Bes, appears ithyphallically; and the phallus is sometimes a snake. The serpent is upraised to form the uraeus, shaped into a circle to make the Ouroboros, and depicted face-to-face with another snake to constitute the caduceus.
⁷
The serpent can become a staff, be part of a branch or a tree, or encircle a branch or a tree.

When did serpent images first appear in the Levant? Sha’ar Hagolan covers 30 hectares. It is thus the largest settlement in the Middle East in the Neolithic Period.
⁸
The eight-thousand-year-old site preserves the largest collection of prehistoric art in the world. Well-planned streets and large courtyard houses define the Yarmukian village; this is the beginning of settlement planning in the Holy Land.

The site is significant not only because of the impressive evidence of organized village life, but also for its abundant and arresting artwork. One building covers 400 square meters, and one exposed street is 3 meters wide. The Yarmukians apparently originated pottery in this area. More than three hundred art objects (usually anthropomorphic and zoological figurines) found at Sha’ar Hagolan reveal the importance of art, iconography, and symbolism when village life first began. Most of the objects are anthropomorphic and zoological, but not one serpent image has been discovered.

Quite different from Sha’ar Hagolan is Göbekli Tepe. This site in Upper Mesopotamia, now southeastern Turkey, is monumental but enigmatic. It also dates from the Neolithic Period and covers approximately 9 hectares with about 15 meters of deposit.
⁹
The site is not a city since no traces of daily life have been found. It is a central cultic settlement that is surrounded by small villages. No occupation has been found that postdates the Pre-Pottery Neolithic Period (it became an agricultural site from Roman to modern times). Why is this site important for us?
¹⁰

One building, in Layer III, is labeled “the Snake Pillar House.” Why? It is an enclosure (Enclosure A) that has snake reliefs on freestanding monolithic pillars. Another area of Layer III, discovered in 2002, boasts eleven pillars discovered in situ. Many reliefs depict animals, including lions, bulls, foxes, boars, cranes, quadruped reptiles, and snakes. Images of snakes were also found in the Crane Pillar Building. The archaeologists found a green stone plaquette in Layer I that derived from Layer III; it is decorated with images of an arrow, a bird perhaps, and a snake. It is clear that this Neolithic site was a cultic setting on a mountain (a high limestone ridge) in which serpents symbolized something positive, perhaps fertility, life, and divinity. The massive and numerous columns, which demanded expenditure of time and assets, signify that the serpents were chosen to symbolize what was needed when the ancients gathered there for exchanges of goods and words.

Caveat

One caveat seems necessary before proceeding further. It is imperative to continue seeking to observe a coherent and clear methodology. Similarities must be judged and differences observed. Lines that denote water or a mountain range can be wrongly interpreted to signify a snake, or they can be misinterpreted as only one of these, missing a possible double entendre. Serpentine appliqué on glass can be mere decoration and have nothing to do with serpents, or such appliqué may appear to constitute a rule that serpents never appear on glass—which is a widely held opinion that we have demonstrated is a fallacy (see
Figs. 43
and
71
). It is easy to confuse, as some great scholars have, the image of a snake coming out of the ground and wrapping itself around a goddess with the furls on the long garment of a human.
¹¹

One site must suffice now as an example. At Sha’ar Hagolan, just north of the River Yarmuk and west of the Jordan River, hundreds of art objects have been found, which is highly significant since this site bore witness to a major change in human history: after over two million years humans began to settle into villages and turn from hunting to agriculture. The anthropological and zoomorphic figures are highly symbolic, but other objects are probably not. The basalt stones with slits are not images of a female fertility goddess; they are for sharpening stones.
¹²
The basalt stones with images of numerous lines, sometimes crisscrossing in parallel lines, are designed for neither games nor a calendar;
¹³
they are probably designed to brand animals. While it is not always easy to separate realia into symbolic objects and practical tools, some images are symbolic. The cross, with both lines of equal length, is most likely carved to denote harmony, a central point, or some other symbol. It is clear that a line may be for utilitarian purposes or invested with some unknown deep symbolic meaning.
¹⁴

Sometimes the study of symbology can lead to statements that seem absurd. For example, in
The Penguin Dictionary of Symbols
, J. Chevalier and A. Gheerbrant state under the entry “Serpent” the following: “Lines have neither beginning nor end and, once they come alive, they become capable of depicting whatever you like or of changing into any shape.”
¹⁵
When focused on how pygmies depict snakes on the ground as a line, this statement has some stimulating meaning; taken literally, it is patently absurd. If lines had neither beginning nor end, we could never measure them, as we do constantly. Also, a line can never come alive; as a symbol it can take on life, provided that is what its creator intended or what a putative viewer might have perceived. Thus, the study of symbology must be grounded. The interpreter must strive to indwell the sphere of meaning in which an author created or crafted a meaningful symbol. Virtually none of the images studied so far and to be assessed now can be categorized as “art for art’s sake” or “mere decoration.”
¹⁶

Dreams

As we seek to discern the origin and meaning of serpent symbolism, it is imperative to add to a study of the physiological characteristics of snakes the importance of serpents in human dreams. Human imagination and dreams help explain the often fantastic elements in ophidian iconography and symbology.

It is in dreams that many, perhaps most, of our symbols are fashioned. No one helped us to understand dreams as much as Carl Gustav Jung. In
Man and His Symbols
, which we cited at the beginning of this work, Jung rightly stressed that “the images and ideas” that appear in dreams “cannot possibly be explained solely in terms of memory” (p. 26). Jung correctly observed: “Elements often occur in a dream that are not individual and that cannot be derived from the dreamer’s personal experience” (pp. 56#x2013;57). These archaic remnants, to use Jung’s word, appear to be primordial and inherited by all humans, regardless of place or time.

I can agree with Jung that dreams, like the one by the eight-year-old,
¹⁷
which depict the primordial evilness of a serpent, are not easily attributable to memory.
¹⁸
I must beg to differ with him, however, when he explains them too cavalierly as “sudden pictorial ‘revelations’ from the unconscious,”
¹⁹
which “cannot be derived from the dreamer’s personal experience.”
²⁰
Are dreams nothing less than the “aboriginal, innate, and inherited shapes of the human mind”?
²¹