"In most ancient languages, probably all, the name for the serpent signifies Life, and the roots of these words generally also signify the male and female organs, and sometimes these conjoined. In low French the words for Phallus and life have the same sound, though, as is sometimes the case, the spelling and gender differ"; but this fact is thought to be of no material importance, as "Jove, Jehova, sun, and moon have all been male and female by turn."
No doubt many of the inconsistencies hitherto observed in the religion of the ancients will disappear so soon as we obtain a clearer knowledge of their chronology; and events which now seem contradictory will be satisfactorily explained when placed in their proper order with regard to date. Religion, like everything else, is constantly shifting its position to accommodate itself to the changed mental conditions of its adherents; hence, ideas which at any given time in the past were perfectly suited to a people, would, in the course of five hundred or one thousand years, have become changed or greatly modified.
During a certain stage in human history "all great women and mythical ladies were serpents"; but when monumentally or pictorially represented, they appeared "with the head of a woman, while the body was that of a reptile." This figure represented Wisdom and Passion, or the spiritual and material planes of human existence. The mythical woman whom Hercules met in Scythia, and who was doubtless the original eponymous leader of the Scythian people, had the head of a woman and the body of a serpent.(73) Even the Mexicans declare that "he, the serpent, is the sun, Tonakatl-Koatl, who ever accompanies their first woman." Their primitive mother, they said, was Kihua-Kohuatl, which signifies a serpent. In referring to this Mexican tradition, Forlong remarks: "So that the serpent here was represented as both Adam and Adama; and their Eden, as in Jewish story, was a garden of love and pleasure."(74)
73) Herodotus, book iv., 9.
74) Rivers of Life, vol. i., p. 143.
The traditions extant among all peoples seem to connect the introduction of the serpent into religious symbolism, with a time in the history of mankind when they first began to recognize the fact, that through the abuse of the reproductive functions, evil, or human wretchedness, had gained the ascendency over the higher forces. The Deity represented by a woman and a serpent involved the idea not alone of good, but of good and evil combined. Together they prefigured not only Wisdom and generative power, but evil as well. Mythologically they represented the cold of winter and the heat of the sun's rays, both of which were necessary reproduction. From this conception sprang the Ormuzd and Ahryman of the Persians, the story of Adam, Eve, and the serpent in Genesis, and the legend of Kihua-Kohuatl and Tonakatl-Koatl in Mexico.
"The serpent remained in the memory and affections of most early people as wisdom, life, goodness, and the source of knowledge and science, under various names such as Toth, Hermes, Themis, the Kneph or Sophia of Egyptians and Gnostics, and Set, Shet, or Shem of the Jews."(75)
75) Forlong, Rivers of Life, etc., vol. i., p. 143.
The Serpent Goddess, although embracing evil as well as good, was still the "Giver of Life" and the "Teacher of Mankind." These were the titles which in later ages began to be coveted by monarchs, and then it was that the attributes belonging to this Deity began to appear in connection with royalty.
There is no ancient divinity about which there seems to be connected so much mystery as the Assyrian Hea. When referring to the "great obscurity" which surrounds this God we are assured that there is at present "no means of determining the precise meaning of the cuneiform Hea, which is Babylonian rather than Assyrian," but that it is doubtless connected with the Arabic Hya, which is said to mean "life," or the female principle in creation. This Deity is the God of "glory" and of "giving," titles which during the earlier ages of human existence belonged to the Queen of Heaven, the Celestial Mother.