Serpent god; which, in fact, is a mere translation of the Syriac or Chaldaic Nachash. He represents him, as being the prince of those evil spirits, who contended with the Supreme God Cronus, and who in consequence were ejected from heaven. Their happiness being thus justly forfeited, they were henceforth plunged in the depths of Tartarus, hateful and mutually hating each other.'

It is evident, that this story is substantially the same as that of the Persic Ahriman: for, in addition to his poisoning the first-created man, that malignant serpent is said, to have fought against Ormuzd and the fixed stars at the head of the Dives of Mazenderan, to have formed a design of ruining the whole world, and to have been at length defeated by the celestial Izeds and to have been plunged into Douzakh or Tartarus with his rebellious associates.*

From Syria and the east, the legend passed into Greece, mingled however with allusions to the deluge; because, as I have just observed, that great event was esteemed the peculiar work of the evil principle and Ophion, with his consort Eurynomè the daughter of the wide encroaching Ocean, still appears in opposition to Cronus, and is still cast down from heaven into hell.3

5. The same evil being, in the same form, appears again in the mythology of the Goths or Scythians.

Orig. cont. Cels. lib. vi. p. 304.

Zend-Avest. in Orig. of Pag. Idol. b. iii. c. 3. § 1.

Tzetz. in Lycoph. ver. 1191. Apoll. Argon. lib. i. ver. 503-507.

We are told by the ancient Scalds, that the bad principle, whom they denominate Loke, unites great personal beauty with a malignant and inconstant nature: and he is described, as surpassing all creatures in the depth of his cunning and the artfulness of his perfidy.

Here the pristine glory and majesty of Satan, before the lineaments of celestial beauty were defaced by his rebellious apostasy, seem not obscurely to be alluded to: while the craft and malevolence, which mark his character as a fallen angel, are depicted with sufficient accuracy.

The assumption of the dracontic form by the evil spirit is represented after a mode not unusual among the pagan mythologists: the great serpent is said to have been an emanation from Loke; and Hela or Hell or Death, in a poetical vein of allegory not unworthy of our own Milton, is celebrated as the daughter of that personage and as the sister of the dragon. Indignant at the pertinacious rebellion of the evil principle, the Universal Father dispatched certain of the gods to bring those children to him. When they were come, he threw the serpent down to the bottom of the ocean. But there the monster waxed so large, that he wound himself around the whole globe of the earth. Death, meanwhile, was precipitated into hell: where she possesses vast apartments, strongly built, and fenced with grates of iron. Her hall is Grief; her table, Famine; Hunger, her knife; Delay, her servant; Faintness, her porch; Sickness and Pain, her bed; and her tent, Cursing and Howling.

Edda Fab. xvi.

Here we seem to have the assumption of the serpentine form and the dreadful evils which it introduced into the world, graphically, though allegorically, exhibited. The dragon encompasses the whole earth with his folds: and, being precipitated from heaven, he has for his eternal associates Death and Hell and Misery. When Lust, whether diabolical or human, hath conceived, it bringeth forth Sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth Death.'

6. From the form assumed by that tempter, who was himself precipitated into Hell, a belief very naturally originated, that his infernal companions were distinguished also by the same reptile figure. Hence we meet with an opinion, common alike to the mythologies of Scythia and of Persia and of Hindostan, that the Tartarean house of torment is occupied by monstrous serpents.

(1.) There is an abode, remote from the sun, says the Author of the Voluspa, the gates of which face the north; an incessant shower of poison streams into it through a thousand openings; and it is entirely composed of the bodies of serpents. Through the midst of it flow dark torrents; in which are plunged the perjured, the assassin, and the seducer. A black-winged dragon flies incessantly around, and devours the bodies of the wretched who are there imprisoned."

I

James i. 15. This text seems to be the germ of Milton's magnificent allegory of Satan and Sin and Death. It is impossible not to be struck with the singular resemblance of the leading idea, which presents itself in the passage from the Edda. 2 Mallet's North. Ant. vol. i. p. 116.

(2.) In a similar manner, the Persians supposed the place of torment to be a dark and bottomless pit, full of scorpions and serpents, which gnaw and sting the feet of the damned. Through it flows a dark and fetid stream, black as pitch and cold as snow, in which the souls of the wicked are plunged.'

(3.) The notions of the Hindoos are evidently derived from the same source. In their mythology, the king of the evil Assoors or demons is called the king of serpents; of which poisonous reptiles, folded together in horrible contortions, their hell or Naraka is formed."

IV. Nearly connected with these traditional accounts of the serpent are those of some promised deliverer, some powerful manifestation of deity, who is destined to bruise the head of that poisonous reptile.

1. In the Gothic mythology, Thor is represented as the first-born of the principal divinity; and is exhibited as a middle deity, a mediator between God and man.3 With regard to his actions, he is said to have wrestled with death, and in the struggle to have been brought upon one knee; to have bruised the head of the great serpent with his mace; and, in his final engagement with that monster, to beat him to the earth and slay him. The victory however is not obtained but at the expence of his own

life. Recoiling back nine steps, he falls dead upon the spot, suffocated with the floods of venom which the serpent vomits forth upon him.'

2. Much the same notion, we are informed, is prevalent in the mythology of the Hindoos. Two sculptured figures are yet extant in one of their oldest pagodas: the former of which represents Crishna, an incarnation of their mediatorial god Vishnou, trampling on the crushed head of the serpent; while in the latter it is seen, encircling the deity in its folds and biting his heel.*

3. These legends are evidently the same in substance as the classical fable, which I have already noticed, respecting Hercules in the garden of the Hesperides. The god, when elevated to the sphere, was depicted in close contest with the serpent which had been appointed to watch the golden. apples and his attitude is that of trampling with his foot upon the head of the vanquished monster.

4. There is yet another vestige of the expected. Saviour in the theology of the Gentiles, which is too remarkable to be passed over in silence.

(1.) Virgil, in his Pollio, announces the approaching birth of an extraordinary child, whom he decorates with all the attributes of the Messiah of the Hebrews.

This child was to be the high offspring of the gods, the great seed of Jupiter. He was to introduce an universal peace, and to establish an empire over the whole world. He was to govern with all

1 Edda. Fab. xxxii.

2 Maurice's Hist. of Hind. vol. ii. p. 290.