Serpent worship

Commenting on Genesis 3:1 in his Notes on Scripture , Edwards digresses into comparative religion to demonstrate that “the serpent has all along been the common symbol and representation of the heathen deities”:

“That the Babylonians worshiped a dragon, we may learn from the Apocrypha; and that they had images of serpents in the temple of Belus, Diodorus Siculus . . . informs us. Grotius, out of several ancient authors, has made it appear that in the old Greek mysteries, they used to carry about a serpent, and cry Eva , the devil thereby expressing his triumph in the unhappy deception of our first mother. The story of Ophioneus, among the heathens, was taken from the devil’s assuming the body of a serpent in his tempting of Eve . . . . And, to name no more, what Philip Melanchthon tells us of some priests in Asia is very wonderful, viz. that they carry about a serpent in a brazen vessel, which they attend with a great deal of music and many charms in verse, while the serpent, every now and then, lifts up himself, opens his mouth, and thrusts out the head of a beautiful virgin [as having swallowed her], to show the devil’s triumph in this miscarriage among these poor deluded idolaters.”