The symbolical language of ancient art and mythology : an inquiry / by Richard Payne Knight.

  • Richard Payne Knight
Date:
1892
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The symbolical language of ancient art and mythology : an inquiry / by Richard Payne Knight. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    27. Not only the property of casting the skin, and acquir- ing a periodical renovation of youth, but also that of pertina- ciously retaining life even in amputated parts, may have re- commended animals of the serpent kind as symbols of health and immortalitv, though noxious and deadly in themselves. Among plants, the olive seems to have been thought to pos- sess the same property in a similar degree; and therefore was probably adopted to express the same attribute. At Athens it was particularly consecrated to Pallas-Athene ; but the statue of Jupiter at Olympia was crowned with it; and it is also observable on the heads of Apollo, Hercules, Cybele, one being the reputed tutelar angel of the Jews, and the other the prince of devils. Ilda-Baoth now forbade the man to eat of the tree of knowl- edge, which could enable him to un- derstand the mysteries and receive the graces from above. But Achamoth, to defeat this project, sent her own genius Ophis or the serpent to instruct man to transgress the command so un- justly imposed upon him. He thus became illuminated from heaven. Ilda-Baoth then made the material body for a prison in which man was enthralled. Achamoth, however, con- tinued his protector, and supplied him with divine light as. he needed in his trials. Of the seed of Adam only Seth kept alive the seed of Light. His children in the wilderness received the law from Ilda-Baoth, but through the teachings of the prophets, Achamoth caused them to receive some idea of the higher life, and afterward induced her own mother, Sophia, to move the Supreme Being to send down Christ to aid the children of Seth. She also persuaded Ilda-Baoth to prepare for his advent by his own agent John the Baptist, and also to cause the birth of the man Jesus, this being a demiurgic rather than a divine work. At the baptism in the Jordan, Christ entered into the man Jesus, who immediately comprehended his divine mission and began his work. Ilda-Baoth stirring up the Jews against him, he was put to death. Immediately Sophia and Christ invested him with a body of sether and placed him at the right hand of Ilda-Baoth by whom he is unper- ceived. Here he collects the purified souls ; and when all these are restored, the world will end, and all the re- deemed will enter into the pleroma. In their eucharist the Ophites have a living serpent which coils around the bread and thus makes it holy. This serpent is the representative of Ophis, who instructed the first man to eat of the tree of knowledge, and so deliver himself from nakedness and the law of jealousy. Ophis is identical with Kneph or Agathodsemon, the Serpent of the Mysteries. Mani the heresiarch taught that he crawled over the bed and overshadowed the Virgin Mary. The serpent-club of .^sculapius was a badge of the Ophites, who indeed are supposed to have existed long before the Christian era. They abounded in Asia, Egypt, Spain, and all parts of the Christian world. The Ophites and Gnostics employed secret signs of recognition. Epiphan- ius thus describes them: “ On the arrival of any stranger belonging to the same belief, they have a sign given by the man to the woman, and vice versa. In holding out the hand under pretense of saluting each other, they feel and tickle it in a peculiar manner underneath the palm, and so discover that the new-comer belongs to the same sect. Thereupon, however poor they may be, they serve up to him a sumptuous feast, with abun- dance of meats and wine. After they are well filled the entertainer rises and withdraws, leaving his wife behind, with the command: ‘ show thy charity to this man, our brother.’ ” The Albigenses, Cathari and Pauli- cians are reckoned among the worship- ers of the agathodaemon.—A. W. Virgil: Georgies, ii. v. 30, and 181. Theophrastus : Hist. Plant, lib. v. c. ix. Bausanias : Eliac. i. c, xi. s. I.
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