I.

SECT. the ferpent deity. The word Naga in the Sanfcrit actually fignifies a ferpent, and it approaches very nearly in found to the Punic Nachash end, if the n be pronounced as a guttural.

That this derivation may not seem too fanciful, let us confider how far the title of the Serpent Deity correfponds with the rites in honour of Dionyfus. During the period of the Bacchanalia, his frantic votaries appeared like perfons distracted, wildly rambling in every direction, and clad in the fkins of fawns. These were followed by a number of noble virgins, bearing golden baskets filled with fruit, in which, fays Potter, "confifted the most mysterious part "of the folemnity." In the baskets were placed ferpents, which fometimes crawling out, ftruck the beholders with astonishment. In the mean time the whole multitude joined in reiterated exclamations of the word Evoed.

Wilford's Effay on Egypt, &c. in Asiat. Ref. vol. iii. d See Potter's Grec. Antiq. vol. i. p. 383. also Gutler's Orig. Mundi, p. 9. This latter Author derives the terms Evoe, Evafmus, &c. from Eve; yet, what appears to be a fingular overfight, he omits noticing the ferpents, which made fo confpicuous a figure in the rites of Dionyfus.

The

The whole of this remarkable feftival CHAP appears to be a kind of scenical reprefenta- III. tion of the fall of our first parents. Excluded from Paradife, and distracted with grief, they were doomed to wander over the face of the earth in queft of another habitation. Like the ancient Bacchanals, they were clad in the fkins of beasts, their native innocence being forfeited, and the happiness, which refults from a sense of friendship with God, being intermingled with guilty fear and anxious distrust. The remembrance of the fatal fruit, and of the malicious tempter, perpetually forced itfelf upon their minds, and, through the channel of oral tradition, was doubtlefs long preserved among their posterity. As the woman first plucked the apples, and afterwards carried them to her husband ; when this circumftance came to be mythologically represented, the fruit, which constituted the most myfterious part of the Dionyfia, was naturally placed in the hands of females, and by them alone borne in the facred proceffion. For fimilar reasons, the ferpent, which took his ftation near the forbidden tree, and there tempted the woman to tranfgrefs the prohibition of God, was, in the myftic rites of Dionyfus, clofely

VOL. I.

H

SECT. clofely connected with the fruit, and carI. ried along with it in the fame golden baf

kets. Laftly, in the term Evoe, which refounded from every mouth during the continuance of the feftival, we may trace a manifest allufion to the name of our unhappy parent, through whofe frailty, fin and death firft entered into the world, and difturbed the original harmony of univerfal

nature".

Pherecydes Syrius ftyles the Prince of certain evil fpirits, that contended with Saturn, Ophioneus, or the Serpent Deity; a circumftance, from which Celfus argued, that the Mofaical hiftory of the fall was borrowed from Pagan traditions. He is however well anfwered by Origen, who clearly fhews the great priority of the era of Mofes to that of either Heraclitus or Pherecydes. The objection therefore of

• The fame idea may be found in Eufebius. Aosco Μαινόλην οργιάζεσι Βακχοις ωμοσφαγια την ἱερομανίαν αγοντες και Τελισκεσι τας κρεανομίας των φόρων, ανεγεμμένοι τοις ΟΦΕΣΙΝ' επος λιλύζοντες ΕΥΑΝ εκείνην, δι ̓ ὧν ἡ πλάνη παρηκολούθησε, και ο θε νατος επηκολέθησε και σημείον οργιων βακχικών ΟΦΙΣ επι τετε REVO. EUSEB. Præp. Evang. lib. ii. c. 3.

See the whole paffage in Stillingfleet's Orig. Sacr. b. iii. c. 3.

Celfus,

Celfus, when thus confuted, allowing as CHAP. he does this ftriking fimilarity, ferves only III. to confirm the fyftem which is here adopted, and to establish upon a furer basis the authenticity of the Pentateuch.

It is well obferved by Bp. Stillingfleet, that, as Satan first tempted Eve by a promife of the acquifition of wisdom, so he "was always ambitious to have the world

think, that the knowledge of good and "evil was to come by the ferpent ftill. "Thence came the use of ferpents fo much “in divination; thence w fignifies to di

vine, from a ferpent; and fo among "the Greeks, overda is taken in the "fame fenfe, from ovos, a ferpent. So "that excellent gloffographer Hefychius ;

દ

αιωνος, οφις επιεικώς γαρ λέγεται εις τας

μαντείας τους οφεις εχειν, οὓς και οιωνούς ελε

γου Thus we fee, how careful the "devil was to advance his honour in the "world, under that form wherein he had "deceived mankind into fo much folly and mifery."

According to Pierius, the ancients thought

Stillingfleet's Orig. Sacr. b. iii. c. 3.

H 2

that

SECT. that deftruction, misfortune, and terror,

I.

were fymbolically reprefented by the ferpent. Hence, at the Delphic oracle, there was a ferpent which feemed to challenge Apollo to fingle combat, implying, as Plutarch supposed, that deftruction is always adverse to health. By the ferpent Python, flain by Apollo, fome understand the force and malignity of those poisonous diftempers, with which man is frequently forced to ftruggle in this ftate of mortal existence; while others conceive it to fignify a race of demons, to whom, as Adamantius informs us, dragons and ferpents perform the part of miniftering attendants. In a fimilar manner, Diodorus Siculus afferts, that evil is fymbolized by a ferpent twisted in fpiral volumes".

This

h See Olaus Wormius de Monum. Dan. lib. v. Author, among other pieces of antiquity, mentions a remarkable golden horn, in the collection of the King of Den-. mark, embellifhed with various hieroglyphics. In the first circular compartment is represented a naked man, with outftretched hands and feet, deploring, as it were, his own mifery. On both fides, he is attacked by ferpents, the poifonous teeth of which are directed against him. On this hieroglyphic the Danish Antiquarian makes the following

"It is impoffible to defcribe human mifery, in a more "appofite manner, than by the foregoing emblem. On one hand, that old ferpent, the Devil, perpetually annoys man