The Good and Evil Serpent (48 page)

He who digs a pit shall fall into it;

And who breaks a hedge, a serpent
will bite him.

[Eccl 10:8;
⁵⁸
cf. Amos 5:19]

Much earlier, in an inscription of Sefire (southeast of Aleppo) that antedates the conquest of Arpad by Tiglath-pileser III, the king of Arpad will be cursed if he violates the treaty; among the animals that will devour Arpad is the snake.
⁵⁹

Many Hellenistic and early Roman literary accounts and artistic depictions celebrate Hercules, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, for successfully, as a baby, strangling the two serpents sent by Hera to kill him.
⁶⁰
A real baby, perhaps a depiction of Caracalla or Marcus Aurelius’ son, Annius Verus, shapes the body in a portrayal of Hercules as he strangles a snake; this sculpture is on display in the Capitoline Museum.
⁶¹
The boy with two large black snakes, with red mouths and white fangs, is graphically real in the mosaic in “the House of the Evil Eye” in Antioch.
⁶²
The serpents sent to kill Hercules indicate that this animal is the quintessential Death-Giver (see
Figs. 54
and
55
).

The same iconography and symbology apply to the large serpents sent to kill Laocoon and his sons. Sometimes Laocoon’s wife is depicted with upraised axe trying to slay the large and death-dealing snakes.
⁶³
Artists who render Cleopatra’s death almost always evoke the legend that the asp is the one who brought the kiss of death. According to the Jewish author who wrote the
Testament of Abraham
(shorter text; 14 and 17), Death is a being, and one of his heads is a snake.

According to the compiler of the
Lives of the Prophets
, Jeremiah prayed “and the asps left” the Egyptians. Moreover, “to this very day” (reports the author), God’s faithful take the dust from the place where Jeremiah performed this miracle. Then these people remove the fear brought by snakes, since the dust heals “asps’ bites.”
⁶⁴

The author of the book of Revelation imagined that a large portion of humankind would be killed (9:20), and reported a vision of wild horses. The tails of these horses are “like serpents” (9:19). According to Jewish lore, when Hadrian inspected the corpse of Bar Kokhba he discovered his
petuma
(body or phallus) was encircled by a snake and was responsible for his death (/’.
Ta’an
4.69a). The author of the
Acts of Andrew
relates how a large snake (50 cubits long) threatens a family and kills a child, but Andrew slays the beast (cf.
AcJn
69–77).

Aulus Cornelius Celsus (fl. 14–37
CE)
, famous for his book on medicine, offered cures for bites from various types of poisonous snakes.
⁶⁵
His remedies for snakebite are scarcely insightful or efficacious. He tells the afflicted to apply a cup, plaster, or salt on the wound (5.27.1). Experience or practice
(usus)
reveals that when an asp strikes one
(quem aspis percussit)
, the victim should drink vinegar
(acetum;
5.27.4). Elsewhere, Celsus instructs the victim to place goat’s dung
(stercus caprinum)
over the bite
(super vulnus;
5.27.8). I would rather follow his preceding advice and drink some wine.
⁶⁶

According to the author of the
Testament of Abraham
, Death shows Abraham “venomous wild beasts—asps and cobras and leopards and lions and lion cubs and bears and vipers.” Then Death tells him: “and in a word I showed you the face of every wild beast.” The reason these dangerous creatures were shown to Abraham is because many humans “being breathed on by venomous snakes—[dragons and asps and horned serpents and cobras] and vipers—depart life.”
⁶⁷
The serpent is the Death-Giver.

The Gemara in the Babylonian Talmud relates an incident that saved Rabbi Eleazar from danger and perhaps death. While Rabbi Eleazar was in a latrine, a nondescript Roman rudely pushed him aside. After Rabbi Eleazar left the latrine, a dragon-snake
klled the Roman (Berachot 62b). The snake also serves as the executioner, according to a saying attributed to Shimon ben Shetach in the Babylonian Talmud
(b. Sanh
. 37b). In early times, Jews were afraid of drinking water that may have been contaminated with the poison of a snake.
⁶⁸
Why? They perceived the snake as the Death-Giver.

The depiction of Christ defeating the serpent signifies that the serpent is the agent of death (see
Fig. 2
). At the Last Judgment, Christ is holding the snake, and that might signify the judgment on the one who brought death. According to a Coptic amulet, Christ descended to earth on December 25 (Choiak) to pass “judgment on all the poisonous snakes.”
⁶⁹
That is, Christ brings death to the Death-Giver.

The snake as the Death-Giver is epitomized in Aesop’s fable, “A Countryman and a Snake.” The countryman found a snake under a hedge in a very cold winter. It was virtually frozen to death. The man picked it up and placed it on his warm chest. As soon as the snake revived, he bit and killed the man who had saved his life. The man’s last words were a question: Is the “Venemous Ill Nature of thine” to be satisfied “with nothing less then [sic] the Ruine of thy Preserver?”
⁷⁰

According to the
Gospel of Bartholomew
, Death with his six sons comes to the tomb of Jesus. They appear in the form of serpents. Death asks Jesus: “Who are you?” Jesus, removing the napkin from his face, looks into the face of Death and laughs. The serpent gods flee.

The image of the snake as the Death-Giver appears throughout Western culture. In one of Shakespeare’s most polished works,
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
, Hermia elopes to marry Lysander. At one point she feels he is lost—even dead. With passion she hisses at Demetrius and accuses him of killing her lover:

And hast thou kild him, sleeping? O braue tutch!
Could not a worme, an Adder do so much?
An Adder did it: For with doubler tongue
Then thyne (thou serpent) neuer Adder stung.
⁷¹

At this point, some readers may be satisfied that we have adequately summarized serpent symbolism. They knew all along that the snake is the one who causes death.
⁷²
The snake is the bloodthirsty creature. After all, three hundred to four hundred snakebites are reported each year in modern Israel.
⁷³
Such a conclusion is not only unthinkable in light of the insights obtained in the preceding pages, but it fails to perceive the true bloodthirsty creature on this planet.

The mosquito bites more than five hundred million people each year. This little monster, whose wings flap at the rate of six hundred times a minute, causes plagues, including yellow fever, which killed twenty thousand during the French attempt to dig the Panama Canal. It is well known for delivering the deadly malaria. This creature never—or barely—made it into the elite animal world of mythology. The lion devours the human
(GosThom)
, the serpent is the venomous Devil, but the mosquito is unper-ceived to be the little vampire. It is actually more misperception than perception that categorizes the snake as the Death-Giver. Ophiologists agree that poisonous snakes are usually reclusive and reluctant to attack and bite someone; perhaps they conserve their venom for use in life-threatening circumstances or to obtain life-sustaining food.

One of the symbolic meanings of the serpent is the Death-Giver. Unfortunately, too many people today end with this mere beginning in the study of serpent symbolism.

Destroyer (Impure One)

The unparalleled ability of a snake to force its mouth open to five times its diameter and to swallow whole, and alive, a heavier (but not longer) animal elicited reflections on the serpent as the ideal symbol of the Destroyer (cf. 2.9). In Egyptian iconography the serpent god Apophis (Apep) is the “Destroyer.”
⁷⁴
Not many humans would relish the task of taking apart their own skeleton to eat; thus, the snake came to symbolize the Destroyer.

Today, especially in the desert and wilderness, Bedouin believe in demons called
jinn
. These beings can intermittently take human forms, but they are often perceived to be serpents with real bodies; they are not phantasms.
⁷⁵
These
jinn
when disturbed will protect or avenge themselves. They can spew forth sickness and madness. According to many accounts, Muhammed ed-Dib, who found Qumran Cave I, fled, initially, when he heard the sound of his rock careening off ceramics; he feared that
jinn
inhabited the cave.

The one who expanded the sayings of the prophet Isaiah with 65:25 caught a vision of the future perfect time when no longer will there be a destroyer in Zion. The wolf will no longer kill the lamb: “They will feed together.” The lion shall no more devour the ox; both “shall eat straw.” But the author, knowing that God had ordered the serpent to eat dust
forever (Gen 3:14), could only foresee that “dust
shall be the serpent’s food.” Yet, God did not say the serpent must continue as the destroyer. He (or she) will henceforth eat only dust. Why? The answer is because no creature “shall hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain.”

Some Jews may have eventually imagined that the serpent had not been eternally cursed. Perhaps some of the compilers or readers of
Perek Shi-rah
imagined the snake, along with other creatures, could quote Scripture and praise God: “The snake is saying: ‘God supports all the fallen, and straightens all the bent’ (Psalms 145:14).”
⁷⁶