Evidence has recently been brought forward which goes to show that the serpent called the “good genius” in Egypt, in general, was in the part familiar to the Israelites, in the district of Suket, called also the dwelling-place of Ankh, “the Living One,” whose chief city was Piton,[198] regarded as the simulacrum of the sun-god Ra, or, rather, Atum, Tum, or Tom, the sun as he sets.[199] Brugsch, who has studied the matter carefully, says: “The god Tom represents solely the Egyptian type, corresponding to the divinity of Piton, who is called by the name of Ankh, and surnamed ‘the great god.’... A serpent to which the Egyptian texts give the epithet of ‘the Magnificent,’ ‘the Splendid,’ was regarded as the living symbol of the god of Piton. It bore the name of Kereh; that is, ‘the Smooth.’ And this serpent again transports us into the camp of the Children of Israel in the Wilderness; it recalls to us the brazen serpent of Moses, to which the Hebrews offered the perfumes of incense, until the time when King Hezekiah[200] decreed the abolition of this ancient serpent-worship.”[201] He further says: “I will not venture to decide the question whether the god, ‘He who lives,’ of the Egyptian text is identical with the Jehovah of the Hebrews, but, at all events, everything tends to this belief when we remember that the name of Jehovah[202] contains the same meaning as the Egyptian word Ankh, ‘He who lives.’”[203] These are highly interesting statements of this learned Egyptologist.
Bearing in mind what has just been said, it is interesting to turn to what Solomon (?) says about the “brazen serpent,” and the cures wrought by it. In the “Book of Wisdom,” it is spoken of as a symbol, “a sign of salvation;”[204] and, it is said: “For it was neither herb nor molifying plaster that healed them, but thy word, O Lord, which healeth all things.”[205] And to this it is added: “For it was thou, O Lord, that hath power of life and death and leadest down to the gates of death and bringest back again.”[206]
Christian writers have generally explained the brazen serpent to be a symbol of God, or the Savior. The writer of the article on medicine, in Smith’s “Dictionary of the Bible,” says that even in the Talmud it is acknowledged “that the healing power lay not in the brazen serpent itself, but as soon as they feared the Most High and uplifted their hearts to the heavenly father they were healed, and in default of this they were brought to nought.” Thus the brazen serpent was symbolical only. A serpent clinging to a cross was formerly much used as an emblem of Christ. In fact, a sort of Christian serpent-worship was for a long period greatly in vogue among many besides the professed Ophitæ.
In this connection it is well to say, that the naja haje, naia, or asp, the serpent shown in the cut of the brazen serpent, was the species always, or nearly always, taken to represent the spirit pervading nature, the Agathodæmon, or Cnuphis, whom the Egyptians were wont to adore as the creator of the world. It was the Uræus or Basiliskos of the Pharaohs. It is from three to five feet in length. It is extremely venomous. In appearance, it resembles the Indian cobra de capello,[207] but has no spectacle-marking on its head. In hieroglyphics it signifies “goddess.”
As to “the serpent of the burning bite which destroyed the Children of Israel,” I may say, in the words of an authoritative work, “Either the cerastes or the naja haje or any other venomous species frequenting Arabia may denote it.”[208] The Vipera cerastes is small, horned, burrows in sand, and is very venomous. Herodotus was led to believe that it was “perfectly harmless,”[209]—a great mistake. It was used to represent the letter f. Says Sir Gardner Wilkinson: “As Herodotus does not notice the asp, it is possible that he may have attributed to the cerastes the honor that really belonged to that sacred snake.”[210] This mistake is still frequently made.
But the association of the serpent with Æsculapius, as a remnant of serpent-worship, can be explained without going to the Egyptian Tum, or any other foreign sun-god. One has but to turn to Apollo, to whom, as in the case of, perhaps, all sun-gods, the reptile was sacred.[211]
The question now is, then, what was the reason for the association of the serpent with Apollo? The usual reply is: the destruction by him of the Python, which is essentially the same as the Aub or Ob, or, as it is often given, Typhon, of the Egyptians, an evil monster which was probably taken primarily to represent harm resulting from the periodical overflow of the Nile. Homer says:—
“With his shining shaft Apollo slew
That ugly dragon, hideous to the view,