From the numerous and credible accounts I have seen, snakes, I am persuaded, have a power of charming, by looking steadfastly with their fiery eyes, on birds, mice, and such creatures as they prey upon. They are put into such an agony, as to run by degrees into their open mouth. Further, snakes were thought to have an inchanting power, not only with their eyes, but likewise by whispering into the ears: for by that whispering they communicated a prophetick and divine spirit. The scholiast of _Euripides_ writes, of _Helenus_ and _Cassandra_, that serpents licking their ears, so sharpened their hearing, that _they_ only could hear the counsels of the gods; and became great prophets thereby. This incantation by the ears, is elegantly apply’d by the fathers, in their writings, to the preachers of the gospel, and to our Saviour himself. _Clemens in pædagog._ V. calls him Επωδὸς the inchanter, as the learned _Spanheim_ observes: and often St. _Chrysostom_ uses the like expression. [Illustration: TAB. XXX. _Stukeley del._ _Milbarrow _in_ Monkton _215 f. long 55 broad set round with great Stones, the broad end Eastwᵈ. the narrow end W. drawn 10 Iuly 1723_] All these put together, I take to be some good reasons (to omit several more for brevity’s sake) for the extraordinary veneration paid to this creature, from all antiquity. Our oldest heathen writer _Sanchoniathon_ says, the _Phœnicians_ call’d it _agathodæmon_, the good angel. _Epies_ the _Phœnician_ in _Eusebius_ pronounces it a most divine animal. _Maximus_ of _Tyre_ before quoted writes, that the serpent was the great symbol of the deity, in most nations, even among the _Indians_. _Sigismund_ in his _Muscovite_-history, says the like of the _Samogitians_, in the northern parts of that vast empire. _Gaguin_ in his _Sarmatia_, of the _Lithuanians_. So _Scaliger_ in his notes on _Aristotle_ of animals, concerning the people of _Calicut_ in the _East-Indies_; all books of travels into the _West-Indies_, the like. This sufficiently proves the notion nearly as old as mankind. From these notions in antiquity, arose the strange humour of the ophite sect or heresy, who affirm the seducer serpent was the son of God. _Epiphanius_, _Tertullian_, St. _Augustin_ and others speak of it. They kept a serpent in a box and worshipped it. 2. We are to consider the nature of forming of symbols. The serpent simply, as it was curs’d of God, and composite, as hanging on a tree, was symbolical of Christ: according to the sense both of _Jewish_ and Christian writers.