The Good and Evil Serpent (63 page)

Asclepius appears in dreams as a snake and is usually shown with a snake as a companion. His statues, with a staff around which a snake is entwined, permeated the ancient world. Today, Asclepius and his serpent can be seen as elegant sculptures in almost all the museums that feature ancient art, notably the British Museum, the Hermitage, the Greek National Museum in Athens, the museum at Epidaurus, the many museums in Rome, the archaeological museum in Naples, and elsewhere. For example, in the Capitoline Museum of Rome, a fourth-century dark bronze sculpture of Asclepius is on public display (no. 659). Asclepius is shown with a staff that is a small tree with broken branches and a serpent depicted realistically, with mouth, eyes, and scales. R. Jackson concluded that Asclepius’ snake was the harmless
Elaphe longissima.
³⁹⁷
Near the bronze statue of Asclepius is an image of Hygieia with a serpent in her right hand (no. 647).
³⁹⁸

We need to recall that the son of Apollo, Asclepius, was not only associated with the serpent, but also often became the serpent. One example must now suffice. In
Metamorphoses
, Book 15, Ovid reports that Asclepius said: “Only look upon the serpent which twines about my staff
[hunc modo serpentem, baculum qui nexibus ambit].”
Then he announces his transmogrification: “I shall change myself to this
[vertar in hunc].”
³⁹⁹

By at least the first century
CE
, Asclepius seems to have reigned supreme as the god of healing. According to Porphyry’s
Of the Philosophy Derived from Oracles
, as quoted by Eusebius in his
Preparation for the Gospel
, Asclepius spoke, revealing that he controlled wisdom and healing, and would answer requests. Note this excerpt:

From sacred Tricca, lo! I come, the god
Of mortal mother erst to Phoebus born,
Of wisdom and the healing art a king,
Asclepius nam’d. But say, what would’st thou ask?
⁴⁰⁰

Not only Aslcepius but also Eshmun, a Phoenician god often identified with him, is placarded as the god of healing; and the two gods share the same symbols and become identified. Each is portrayed either as a serpent or accompanied by serpents, as we have seen numerous times in earlier chapters (see
Figs. 1
and
53
).

Hygieia, the daughter of Asclepius, is the goddess of healing; she is often depicted holding a bowl and tenderly feeding a large snake (see
Fig. 60
). On a bronze coin minted in 100
CE
at Tiberias she is shown holding a ritual bowl (Greek:
phiale;
Latin:
patera)
in her right hand and a large snake in her left.
⁴⁰¹
The snake is eating out of the bowl.
⁴⁰²
The date, 100
CE
, is near to the final edition of the Gospel of John, about 95
CE
. And a similar image appears on a bronze coin of 250
CE
that was struck in Aelia Capitolina, the city that replaced Jerusalem, now utterly destroyed for a second time within one hundred years. It shows Hygieia holding a bowl in her lap and a large snake rearing up to eat from it.

In Aelia Capitolina (and perhaps earlier in pre-70 Jerusalem), an Ascle-peian was erected in Bethzatha (in the northeast part of the city), as we have already indicated. Archaeologists have found ex-voto offerings; one depicts an impressive upraised serpent,
⁴⁰³
and the rustic Bethzatha Vase is loaded with serpents. At Roman Caesarea Maritima, experts have found evidence of an Asclepeian, with marble votive feet and statues of Asclepius and Hygieia.
⁴⁰⁴
Asclepius was associated with the hot springs at Hammat Tiberius; a coin struck at Tiberius in 99
CE
shows on the obverse the bust of Trajan and on the reverse Hygieia holding the sacred snake.
⁴⁰⁵

Before the time of the Fourth Evangelist and the culture in which his gospel took shape, Livy (died at Padua in 17
CE)
explained why Asclepius was invited to come to Rome from Epidaurus. There had been a pestilence
(pestilentiae)
that had ravaged not only the city but also the countryside. Only Asclepius could heal this sickness. In Book 10.47.6–7, Livy preserved this report: “The Books
[libri]
were consulted to discover what end or what remedy the gods proposed for this misfortune
[eius mali]
. It was discovered in the Books that Aesculapius must be summoned to Rome from Epidaurus
[Aesculapium ab Epidauro Romam].”
⁴⁰⁶
Eventually, a serpent was sent from Epidaurus to Rome; the Romans imagined the serpent was Asclepius.
⁴⁰⁷
It is remarkable that Livy recorded the tradition of how Greece and its gods helped the Romans and their gods, since he stressed in his
History of Rome
, which was written in the 20s
BCE
(when Herod the Great began the rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple), that Rome had been blessed with a religious founding. He also emphasized the “necessity for the ancient cults to be located in Rome and the significance of Rome’s sacred boundary, the pomerium (5.52).”
⁴⁰⁸

A relief from circa 370
BCE
shows the Greek hero healer named Amphiaraus. In the stone is carved a scene in which a serpent licks the wounds on a man’s shoulder. The latter is sleeping in a sanctuary (incubation).
⁴⁰⁹
As R. Parker states: “There were healing gods and heroes throughout Greece, their shrines bedecked, like those of Catholic saints, with the votive offerings of grateful patients (often clay images of the affected organ).”
⁴¹⁰
We discussed these ex-voto offerings to Asclepius and the Asklepieion at Corinth in an earlier chapter.

The image of the serpent as the symbol of salvation should be categorized under healing since healing and salvation are cognitively synonymous. The best example of the serpent as savior appears in a Jewish writing from the second century
BCE
. The author of the Wisdom of Solomon perceived Moses’ raised serpent as a “symbol of salvation” (
[15:6]). The serpent was a sign of salvation; God was the one who healed the Hebrews: “For he that turned himself toward it [the serpent] was not saved by the thing that he saw, but by you who are the Savior of all” (Wis 16:7).

Not only Native Americans, but also Arabs, Greeks, Jews, and Romans often believed that eating a snake’s flesh, or placing its fat on one’s skin, especially in the area bitten, would heal the person and protect him or her from dying.
⁴¹¹
In the ancient world, and not only in modernity, venom was extracted from a snake and used to heal humans. Thus, the connection with healing and the serpent is not only ancient but continues today.

Evident in most discussions of Numbers 21, and lacking in most interpretations of John 3:14–15, is the perception that the serpent is the symbol for healing in many cultures.
⁴¹²
Those who trusted in God and looked up to the serpent were healed from the bite of a venomous snake. Thus, the lore reflected in Numbers 21 is paralleled by Phoenician culture, since Esh-mun, the Phoenician god of healing, is symbolized by a serpent. About the same time in Egypt, amulets shaped like serpents were worn to protect not only the living but also the dead.
⁴¹³
According to the Babylonian Talmud, portions from the snake were efficacious for healing skin diseases (Shabbat 133b).
⁴¹⁴

In Hinduism, Manasa, the snake goddess, is invoked from time immemorial to heal one who has been bitten by a cobra. The ancient Assyrians, Babylonians, and Egyptians revered the serpent as the creature that heals. In ancient Syria and Greece, Shadrapa and Asclepius, the gods of healing, were symbolically associated with the serpent. Today, the caduceus is the symbol of physicians and pharmacists; sometimes the staff of Asclepius with the snake symbolizes the medical profession. In the Hellenic, Hellenistic, and Roman worlds the caduceus was the staff of Asclepius with serpents curled around it.

Figure 74
. Remains of Sculptured Boat, Asclepius Temple
(above)
, and close-up of staff with serpent and bust of Asclepius
(left)
. Tiber River, Rome. JHC

Purifying

The limbless and elongated snake symbolized not only unity and oneness, but also purity (cf. 2.5). The Hebrew noun
, “burning-serpent,” seems to have a connotation for purifying a human of sickness. In contrast to most other nouns for serpent or snake in biblical Hebrew, “burning-serpent” derives from and is etymologically grounded in the verb “to burn” (see
Appendix I
). Thus, the many passages in which
appears in the sense of burning to purify as in a sacrificial offering carry over to the noun, “burning-serpent.”
⁴¹⁵
It is possible that the “burning-serpents” sent by God to “punish” Israel were actually sent to purify it (Num 21). As stoning was a purifying act—to drive out the demon inside the possessed person
⁴¹⁶
—so the bite of the “burning-serpent” may have been perceived as God’s way of purifying those who had doubted and rejected the only true God.