The Good and Evil Serpent (91 page)

Succinctly, and accurately, Smith reports what we surmised in the beginning of this book. There is a consensus among Johannine scholars: in commenting on John 3:14–16, either they fail to see the possibility of the parallel between the serpent and Jesus or they deny any “comparison” between Jesus and the serpent.

In Smith’s clear assessment of the consensus several questions arise: (1) Does the Fourth Evangelist offer us a classic typology whereby Jesus, as the Son of Man lifted up, is portrayed as Moses’ upraised serpent? If so, how can “comparisons of Jesus with the serpent” be “misplaced”? (2) While an element in the Fourth Gospel is clearly a reference to “believing,” should it be categorized as a “new” element since the Hebrews who look up to the metal snake must trust in God’s promise to heal them so they may live? (3) Would the Fourth Evangelist have agreed that “the emphasis on belief” is a “new” element and “absent from the story in Numbers 21”? (4) Does “the analogy” apply “only to being lifted up”? The research summarized in the following pages casts doubt on each of these claims.

Before proceeding further, I must record some concern, having checked over six hundred commentaries on the Fourth Gospel. It is astounding how focused some of the best exegetes are on philology; yet they show no interest in symbology. John 3:14–15 is not problematic philologically; it is complex symbolically. That has become pellucid. Virtually no commentary on the Fourth Gospel over the past hundred years shows interrogatives directed to the “serpent” in John 3:14. Contrast, however, the brilliant and focused attention of John Chrysostom (italics mine):

“That whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.” Seest thou the cause of the Crucifixion, and the salvation which is by it? Seest thou the relationship of the type to the reality? There the Jews escaped death, but the temporal, here believers the eternal; there the hanging
serpent
healed the bites of
serpents
, here the Crucified Jesus cured the wounds inflicted by the spiritual
dragon;
there he who looked with his bodily eyes was healed, here he who beholds with the eyes of his understanding put off all his sins; there that which hung was brass fashioned into the likeness of a
serpent
, here it was the Lord’s Body, builded by the Spirit; there a
serpent
bit and a
serpent
healed, here death destroyed and a Death saved. But the
snake
which destroyed had venom, that which saved was free from venom; and so again was it here, for the death which slew us had sin with it, as the
serpent
had venom; but the Lord’s Death was free from all sin, as the brazen
serpent
from venom…. For as some noble champion by lifting on high and dashing down his antagonist, renders his victory more glorious, so Christ, in the sight of all the world, cast down the adverse powers, and having healed those who were smitten in the wilderness, delivered them from all venomous beasts that vexed them, by being hung upon the Cross. Yet He did not say, “must hang,” but, “must be lifted up” (Acts xxviii. 4); for He used this which seemed the milder term, on account of His hearer, and because it was proper to the type.
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It is impressive how many times John Chrysostom mentions the serpent, the dragon, and the snake.

Serpent Symbolism and Exegesis

Despite insights into the positive symbolism of the serpent by Ephrem Syrus and Cyril of Jerusalem, as well as Augustine and Calvin, the prevailing mood of New Testament exegetes who turn to John 3:14 is that snakes, or serpents, are vile animals who are simply pejorative symbols. This concept can be found in the New Testament, as we have just seen, but the turning point in exegesis of John 3:14–15 may well be seen in the writings of Eusebius (c. 260-c. 340
CE
). In introducing Philo of Byblos’ alleged excerpt from Sanchuniathon, which celebrates the mythological importance of the serpent, Eusebius cannot restrain himself. This genius, often celebrated as the father of Church history, prejudices the reader with these comments: snakes are “creeping and venomous beasts which certainly perform nothing beneficial for humans, but rather effect ruin and destruction for whomever they strike with deadly and cruel venom.”
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Under such denigration of the serpent, which became characteristic of the church, subsequent interpreters of John 3:14 will miss the rich symbolism provided by the culture in which the Fourth Gospel took shape. It was, as we have seen, filled with positive images of the serpent as the source of life, health, rejuvenation, new life, and resurrection. Recall again the epic of Gilgamesh, which was an ancient well-known legend a millennium and more before the Fourth Evangelist. According to Tablet XI, a snake, the “lion of the ground,” steals from Gilgamesh the plant called “The Old Man Becomes a Young Man.” Having obtained the plant, the snake “sloughed off its casing” and became eternally youthful.
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About the same time as Eusebius, the Christian apologist Arnobius (who died about 330
CE)
ridiculed those who portrayed Asclepius as a serpent. He argues that “a serpent” crawls over the earth “as worms are wont to do, which spring from mud.” The serpent “rubs the ground with his chin and breast, dragging himself in sinuous coils.”
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In this section of his seventh book, Arnobius reveals how powerful was the cult of Asclepius and what a threat it was for the success of Christianity. In such a setting, so different from the time in which the Fourth Gospel took shape, it will become more and more difficult to grasp the original intention of the symbolism in John 3:14–15. The backdrop for this stage of history was even set earlier by Tertullian. He was sidetracked from developing his own insights on the typology of the serpent for Christ because of the Ophites who exaggerated the literal meaning of 3:14–15.
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The time of the first Council of the Church—at Nicea in 325
CE
—seems to be a barrier that separates a period when the serpent was predominantly a positive symbol from one in which it is almost always a negative symbol (cf., e.g.,
Fig. 7
). It is abundantly clear, both from a study of Christian thought from the late second century
CE
to the fourth century
CE
and from conversations with learned colleagues in New Testament research, that the exegete is now prejudiced against the serpent symbolizing something positive. That attitude causes a misreading and a misinterpretation of New Testament passages.

The habit of assuming that the serpent symbolizes only evil has been a hallmark of Christian exegesis since about the fourth century. For example, even though Theodoret (c. 393–466), a bishop in Syria, grasps that the Fourth Evangelist drew a parallel between Jesus and the serpent, the serpent must symbolize something negative. Note the following excerpt from Theodoret’s
Dialogues
(the characters are fictitious: “Eranistes” represents the opponent of “Orthodoxus,” the one who argues on the basis of apostolic decrees):

Eranistes.—Do you not think it irreverent to liken the Lord to goats?

Orthodoxus.—Which do you think is a fitter object of avoidance and hate, a serpent or a goat?

Eranistes.—A serpent is plainly hateful, for it injures those who come within its reach, and often hurts people who do it no harm. A goat on the other hand comes, according to the Law, in the list of animals that are clean and may be eaten.

Orthodoxus.—Now hear the Lord likening the passion of salvation to the brazen serpent. He says: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness even so must the Son of Man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.” If a brazen serpent was a type of the crucified Saviour, of what impropriety are we guilty in comparing the passion of salvation with the sacrifice of the goats?

Eranistes.—Because John called the Lord “a lamb,” and Isaiah called Him “lamb” and “sheep.”

Orthodoxus.—But the blessed Paul calls Him “sin” and “curse.” As curse therefore He satisfies the type of the accursed serpent; as sin He explains the figure of the sacrifice of the goats, for on behalf of sin, in the Law, a goat, and not a lamb, was offered. So the Lord in the Gospels likened the just to lambs, but sinners to kids; and since He was ordained to undergo the passion not only on behalf of just men, but also of sinners, He appropriately foreshadows His own offering through lambs and goats.
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Far too often biblical scholars tell me, over and over, that they hate snakes and are afraid of them. That viewpoint seems myopic—even unreflective. These scholars celebrate the power of the bull and with admiration hold a bronze bull artifact from the second millennium
BCE;
they exuberantly exclaim what a powerful and appropriate symbol the bull is for God’s power. They never seem to grasp how dangerous and destructive the bull is. The same scholars write about the lion and admire it as the quintessential symbol of the king and the messiah.
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They seem to forget that “the king of beasts” is far more ferocious and fearful than a snake. Such scholars’ research is corrupted by unperceived presuppositions and nurturing (i.e., instruction that presupposes snakes are always to be feared, hated, and killed).

Indeed, the serpent is perceived to be feared not because of experience with nature but from nurturing. We do not obtain a fear of serpents only, or primarily, from experience or nature. The point I have been making, from the outset of the present book, was popularized in M. Ridley’s “What Makes You Who You Are,” in
Time
(June 2, 2003):
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Fear of snakes, for instance, is the most common human phobia, and it makes good evolutionary sense for it to be instinctive. Learning to fear snakes the hard way would be dangerous. Yet experiments with monkeys reveal that their fear of snakes (and probably ours) must still be acquired by watching another individual react with fear to a snake. It turns out that it is easy to teach monkeys to fear snakes but very difficult to teach them to fear flowers. What we inherit is not a fear of snakes but a predisposition to learn a fear of snakes—a nature for a certain kind of nurture.

We should avoid the error of positing a false dichotomy between nature and nurture. Is it not clear that we are taught to hate snakes? This is not a native disposition inherited. To appreciate ancient serpent symbolism we must be constantly aware to avoid the nurturing that brands snakes as dangerous, evil, and fearsome.

If we are to comprehend successfully the symbolism inherited by and developed by the Fourth Evangelist, we must immerse ourselves in his time. We must indwell the culture that shaped his thoughts and provided the symbolism and metaphors by which he could articulate his own thoughts. His context provided perceptions and symbolism by which he crafted his challenging Christology. G. Theissen, with erudition and sensitivity, illustrates how immersing oneself in the cultural and political context of a text creates new insights for reflection.
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We have been attempting to demonstrate this point by focusing on serpent imagery and symbolism in the cultural and historical contexts of our texts, especially Genesis 3, Numbers 21, and John 3.

During the period when the Fourth Gospel was taking shape and for the next three centuries, the Asclepian cult and its bewitching serpent symbolism were a threat to Christian theologians and church leaders. In
A Plea for the Christians
, the second-century Athenagoras, the Athenian Christian apologist, reported that Hesiod said the following of Asclepius:

The mighty father both of gods and men
Was filled with wrath, and from Olympus’ top
With flaming thunderbolt cast down and slew
Latona’s well-lov’d son—such was his ire.
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Tertullian helps us understand Hesiod’s cryptic verse. Citing the lyric poet Pindar, Tertullian comments that “Aesculapius,” the god of medicine, was “deservedly stricken with lightning for his greed in practising wrongfully his art. A wicked deed it was of Jupiter—if he hurled the bolt—unnatural to his grandson, and exhibiting envious feeling to the Physician.”
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Asclepius was thus killed by Zeus’ thunderbolt, but Asclepius’ story did not end with his death.
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His devotees claimed to experience him alive again, as Origen reports in
Against Celsus
3.24. Such beliefs and hopes challenged the kerygma (proclamation) in the Christian movement (cf. esp. Augustine,
The City of God
7.23 and 10.16). Asclepius remained very popular, especially for all who were sick or injured.
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In his
On the Incarnation of the Word
, Athanasius lists some of the connections between Asclepius and Christ and denies that there is any conceivable parallel. Note his reflections:

You call Asclepius, Heracles, and Dionysus gods for their works. Contrast their works with His, and the wonders at His death.

For what man, that ever was born, formed a body for himself from a virgin alone? Or what man ever healed such diseases as the common Lord of all? Or who has restored what was wanting to man’s nature, and made one blind from his birth to see? Asclepius was deified among them, because he practised medicine and found out herbs for bodies that were sick; not forming them himself out of the earth, but discovering them by science drawn from nature. But what is this to what was done by the Saviour, in that, instead of healing a wound, He modified a man’s original nature, and restored the body whole. Heracles is worshipped as a god among the Greeks because he fought against men, his peers, and destroyed wild beasts by guile. What is this to what was done by the Word, in driving away from man diseases and demons and death itself? Dionysus is worshipped among them because he has taught man drunkenness; but the true Saviour and Lord of all, for teaching temperance, is mocked by these people.
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