Ophiolatreia
Chapter 4
"Such being the only values attached to Serpents and eggs in Egyptian hieroglyphics it is arduous to speculate whether an esoteric significance did or did not exist between those emblems in the, to us, unknown Cosmogony of the Theban and Memphite Colleges. I, too, could derive inferences and deduce analogies between the attributes of the God Knuphis, or the God Ptha, and the 'Mundane Egg' recorded by Eusebius, Jamblichus, and a wilderness of classical authorities, but I fear with no very satisfactory result. It is, however, due to Mr. Bonomi, to cite his language on this subject. Speaking of the colossal state of Rameses Sesostris at Metraheni, in a paper read before the Royal Society of Literature, London, June, 1845, he observes, 'There is one more consideration connected with the hieroglyphics of the great oval of the belt, though not affecting the preceding argument; it is the oval or egg which occurs between the figure of Ptha and the staff of which the usual signification is Son or Child, but which by a kind of two-fold meaning, common in the details of sculpture of this period (the 18th or 19th Dynasty, say B.C. 1500 or 1200), I am inclined to believe refers also to the myth or doctrine preserved in the writings of the Greek authors, as belonging to Vulcan and said to be derived from Egypt, viz., the doctrine of the Mundane Egg. Now, although in no Egyptian sculpture of the remote period of this statue has there been found any allusion to this doctrine, it is most distinctly hinted at in one of the age of the Ptolomies; and I am inclined to think it was imported from the Easy by Sesostris, where, in confirmation of its existence at a very remote period, I would quote the existence of those egg-shaped basaltic stones, embossed with various devices and covered with cuneatic inscriptions, which are brought from some of the ancient cities of Mesopotamia.
"In respect to your final inquiry, I may observe that I can produce nothing from the hieroglyphics to connect, directly, Phallic Worship with the solar emblem of the Serpent. In Semitic tongues, the same root signifies Serpent and Phallus; both in different senses are solar emblems."
In the Orphic Theogony a similar origin is ascribed to the egg, from which springs "the Egg-born Protogones," the Greek counterpart of the Egyptian Phtha. The egg in this instance also proceeds from the pre-eminent Unity, the Serpent God, the "Incomparable Cronus," or Hercules. (Bryant, quoting Athenagoras, observes---"Hercules was esteemed the chief god, the same as Cronus, and was said to have produced the Mundane Egg. He is represented in the Orphic Theology, under the mixed symbol of a lion and a serpent, and sometimes of a serpent only.")
Cronus was originally esteemed the Supreme, as is manifest from his being called Il or Ilus, which is the same with the Hebrew El and, according to St. Jerome, one of the ten names of God. Damascius, in the life of Isidorus, mentions distinctly that Cronus was worshipped under the name of El, who, according to Sanchoniathon, had no one superior or antecedent to himself.
Brahm, Cronus, and Kneph each represented the mystical union of the reciprocal or active and passive principles. Most, if not all, the primitive nations recognised this Supreme Unity, although they did not all assign him a name. He was the Creator of Gods, who were the Demiurgs of the Universe, the creators of all rational beings, angels and men, and the architects of the world.
The early writers exhaust language in endeavours to express the lofty character and attributes, and the superlative power and dignity of this great Unity, the highest conception of which man is capable. He is spoken of in the sacred book of the Hindus as the "Almighty, infinite, eternal, incomprehensible, self-existent Being; he who sees everything, though never seen; he who is not to be compassed by description; he from whom the universe proceeds; who reigns supreme, the light of all lights; whose power is too infinite to be imagined; is Brahm, the One Being, True and Unknown." (Coleman's Hind. Mythology.)
The supreme God of Gods of the Hindus was less frequently expressed by the name Brahm than by the mystical syllable O´M, which corresponded to the Hebrew Jehovah. Strange as the remark may seem to most minds, it is nevertheless true, that the fundamental principles of the Hindu religion were those of pure Monotheism, the worship of one supreme and only God. Brahm was regarded as too mighty to be named; and, while his symbolized or personified attributes were adored in gorgeous temples, not one was erected to him. The holiest verse of the Vedas is paraphrased as follows:
"Perfect truth; perfect happiness; without equal; immortal; absolute unity; whom neither speech can describe nor mind comprehend; all-pervading; all-transcending; delighted by his own boundless intelligence, not limited by space or time; without feet, moving swiftly; without hands, grasping all worlds; without ears, all-hearing, understanding all; without cause, the first of all causes; all-ruling; all-powerful; the Creator, Preserver, and Transformer of all things; such is the Great One, Brahm."
The character and power of Kneph are indicated in terms no less lofty and comprehensive than those applied to the omnipotent Brahm. He is described in the ancient Hermetic books as the "first God, immovable in the solitude of his Unity, the fountain of all things, the root of all primary, intelligble, existing forms, the God of Gods, before the etherial and empyrean Gods and the celestial."
In America this great Unity, this God of Gods, was equally recognised. In Mexico as Teotl, "he who is all in himself" (Tloque Nahuaque); in Peru as Varicocha, the "Soul of the Universe;" in Central America and Yucatan as Stunah Ku or Hunab Ku, "God of Gods, the incorporeal origin of all things." And as the Supreme Brahm of the Hindus, "whose name was unutterable," was worshipped under no external form and had neither temples nor altars erected to him, so the Supreme Teot and the corresponding Varicocha and Hunab Ku, "whose names," says the Spanish conquerors, "were spoken only with extreme dread," were without an image or an outward form of worship for the reason, according to the same authorities, that each was regarded as the Invisible and Unknown God.
The Mundane Egg, received as a symbol of original, passive, unorganized, formless nature, because associated, in conformity with primitive notions, with other symbols referring to the creative force or vitalizing influence. Thus in the Hindu cosmogony Brahma is represented, after long inertia, as arranging the passive elements, "creating the world and all visible things." Under the form of the emblematic bull the generative energy was represented breaking the quiescent egg. Encircled by the folds of the agatho-demon, a type of the active principle, it was suspended aloft at the temples of Tyre. For the serpent, like the bull, was an emblem of the sun or of the attributes of that luminary---itself the celestial emblem of the "Universal Father," the procreative power of nature. "Everywhere," says Faber, "we find the great father exhibiting himself in the form of a serpent, and everywhere we find the serpent invested with the attributes of the Great Father and partaking of the honours which were paid him." (Origin Pagan Idol., vol. I, p. 45).
Under this view, therefore, we may regard the compound symbol of the serpent and the egg, though specifically allusive to the general creation, as an illustration of the doctrine of the reciprocal principles which, as we have already seen, enters largely into the entire fabric of primitive philosophy and mythology.
Thus have we shewn that the grand conception of a Supreme Unity and the doctrine of the reciprocal principles existed in America in a well defined and easily recognised form.
Our present inquiry relates to the symbols by which they were represented in both continents. That these were not usually arbitrary, but resulted from associations, generally of an obvious kind, will be readily admitted.
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