This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1877 Excerpt: ... facts being well known, however, I shall dwell on them only so far as may be necessary to support the conclusions based upon them. We are indebted to Mr. Fergusson for bringing together a large array of facts, showing the extraoi'dinary range which serpent-worship had among ancient nations, It is true that he supposes ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1877 Excerpt: ... facts being well known, however, I shall dwell on them only so far as may be necessary to support the conclusions based upon them. We are indebted to Mr. Fergusson for bringing together a large array of facts, showing the extraoi'dinary range which serpent-worship had among ancient nations, It is true that he supposes it not to have been adopted by any nation belonging to the Semitic or Aryan stock; the serpent-worship of India and Greece originating, as he believes, with older peoples. However this may be, the superstition was certainly not unknown to either Aryans or Semites. The brasen serpent of the Hebrew Exodus James Fergusson, D.C.L., F.RS., etc: Tree and Serpent-Wonhip; or Illustrations of Mythology and Art in India in the First and Fourth Centuries after Christ. was destroyed in the reign of Hezekiah, owing to the idolatry to which it gave rise. In the mythology of the Chaldeans, from whom the Assyrians seem to have sprung, the serpent occupied a most important position. Among the allied Phoenicians and Egyptians, it was one of the most divine svmbols. In Greece, Hercules was said "to have been the progenitor of the whole race of serpent-worshipping Scythians, through his intercourse with the serpent Echidna"; and when Minerva planted the sacred olive on the Acropolis of Athens, she placed it under the care of the serpent-deity Erichthonios. As to the Latins, Mr. Fergusson remarks that "Ovid's Metamorphoses are full of passages referring to the important part which the serpent performed in all the traditions of classic mythology." The superstitions connected with that animal are supposed not to have existed among the ancient Gauls and Germans; but this is extremely improbable, considering that it appears to have been known to th...
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