[214] As to these, see King’s “Gnostics and their Remains,” p. 72.
[215] In the philosophy of St. Paul, the death of Christ was rendered necessary by the fall. By the first man, Adam, came death, and in Christ the second Adam are all made alive. Mankind reverts to the position occupied by Adam before he sinned; and as in the New Jerusalem there is no marriage, so in the earthly paradise of the Hebrew legend man was at first intended to live alone.
[216] Theodoret did not distinguish between an Egyptian sect called Sethians and the Gnostic Ophites or serpent-worshippers.
[217] The heavenly serpent, Danh, of the Dahomans, is said by Captain Burton to be the god of wealth. “His earthly representative is esteemed the supreme bliss and general good.” The Slavonian Morlacchi still consider that the sight of a snake crossing the road is an omen of good fortune.—Wilkinson’s “Dalmatia and Montenegro,” vol. ii., p. 160.
[218] Mr. Lane states that each quarter of Cairo is supposed to have its guardian genius, or Agatho-dæmon, in the form of a serpent.—Vol. i., p. 289.
[219] Warburton supposes that the worship of the One God Kneph was changed into that of the dragon or winged-serpent Knuphis.
[220] Vishnu is often identified with Kneph.
[221] According to Gaelic and German folklore, the white snake when boiled has the faculty of conferring medicinal wisdom. The white snake is venerated as the king of serpents by the Scottish Highlanders as by certain Arab tribes, and it would appear also by the Singhalese of Ceylon.
[222] The snake is one of the Indian tribal totems.
[223] Pausanias, iv., 14, mentions Aristodama, the mother of Aratus, as having had intercourse with a serpent, and the mother of the great Scipio was said to have conceived by a serpent. Such was the case also with Olympias, the mother of Alexander, who was taught by her that he was a god, and who in return deified her.—Le Mythe de la Femme et du Serpent, par Ch. Schoebel, 1876, p. 84.