Ancient Symbolism Illustrated.

Evoke ! E piphanius and Clemens , of Alexandria , agree m thinking that this invocation , from its similarity to the name " Eva , " related to the great mother of mankind who was deceived by the serpent . That the serpent was worshipped with two distinct and opposite attributes , namely , as the author of good and fche

author of evil , L-olh ancient and modern history fully establish . " Men , " says the Abbe de Tressan , " perceiving the earth to be filled with good and evil , and having no longer the sacred traditions to guide them , could not believe fhafc a being , who is essentially good , could be the author of evil ; they -therefore imagined two divinities equal in powerand

, both eternal , one was called the good principle , author of all good ; the other the bad principle , author of all evil . Although all nations do not worship the evil spirit , all admit its existence , and many pi-ojiitiate him . The lower class of Chinese , who live in boats upon the water , propitiate their " Joss , " or evil spirit . To a figure of him is assigned the most

honourable post in tho boat j he is offered the choicest parts of their food , and they constantly burn incense before him by lighting what they call the joss stick . The Hindoos in like mannerdeify their good and evil spirits . Independently of the Mosaic history , the serpent possessing the most active powers of destruction in that venom which

Providence has given it for its security , has been considei-ed as a source of evil , or as producing calamity . In India the destroying jiower or death is signified by the serpent , and called Baal-Shalisha . In classic antiquity , the giants who attempted to scale heaven were figured as half serpents . Discord and envy are personified with snakes . In the

northern mythology , Lok , the genius of evil , is styled the Father of the Great Serpent , the Father of Death , the Adversary , the Accuser , the Deceiver of the Gods . The coincidence of these titles , with those of the Satan of scri pture , will be readily observed . That the serpent , the first author of evil to man , should have ever been venerated as the sotor or spirit of goodat first strikes us with amazement ; but our

, astonishment will cease when we reflect that the Nachash of Genesis , the old serpent , the father of evil which beguiled Eve , is certainly not the Saraph or flaming serpent described by Moses in the book of Numbers , and wliich 2 n oved so great a salvation to the Israelites iu the desert when used as a type of the Messiah , and which in the office of mercy

allotted to ifc , as well as by ifcs name Saraph , implies an angel of brightness . A learned Englishman , Archbishop Tennison , in the fourteenth chapter of his discourse on Idolatry , asserts that the activity and splendour of these animals may serve for an emblem of the Saraph , to express the zeal and purity of angels which scripture calls Seraphim , and which name the Hebrews gave to this species of reptile . He thinks that the

angels , when they appeared to men , assumed the form of seraphs or fl ying serpents ; that the devil spoke to Eve in this appearance and thus deceived her , she imagining him to be a saraph or angel . Sfc . Paul states , in the 2 nd Corinthians , xi . 14 , "And no marvel ; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light . " The old Chaldean Hebrew , hoivever ,

calls the serpent tempter Nachash ; while that species of serpent elevated b y Moses in the wilderness as a type of the Saviour , is written Saraph . It has been already sufficiently proved in a former chapter , that not onl y in all nations is a divine triad worshipped , but thafc in every nation under tlie sun , the generative attribute

of the Deity is acknowledged , and either venerated collectively with other attributes , or separately by itself ; thus with the serpent its faculty of easting its coat every year , and appearing with new splendour , and its occasional circular form making a cycle and thereby resembling the circles of beads and diadems , which signified perpetuity of existence , suggested the idea of its adoption as a symbol of the generative attribute , and thence it received divine honours as tlie author of good , The accompanying emblems are called the

Ovhis and Ovum Mumlanum of the Tyrians . Also that of

Ol'llIS TVHIOltUAI . the Cyelopians or first inhabitants of Sicily , the serpent and

OVUM MUNDAMIM ,