How surprizing this! that a Serpent, a Beast to which Mankind has a strong natural Aversion, should be _ador’d by Creatures of Reason_, and yet _nothing more common_, as will appear by the following Instances from Antiquity. _EGYPT_ was a Country that abounded with Variety of Serpents, and where they were generally held in the greatest Veneration. The supreme God was represented by them in the _Form_ of a _Serpent_ with a Hawk’s Head, because of the wonderful Agility of that Bird. We see no Table of _Osiris_ and _Isis_, two _Egyptian Idols_, without a Serpent joined to them[392]. This _Isis_ married _Osiris_, King of that Country, and govern’d with so much Wisdom and Gentleness, that the _Egyptians_ paid divine Honours to them, who had been such Blessings to the Land. Footnote 392: _Macrobii Oper. Sat._ cap. xx. In _Egypt_ is a Serpent of the Aspick Kind, called _Thermutis_, to which they gave divine Worship; therefore crown’d with it the Statue of their Goddess _Isis_. In the Corners of the Temples, they built little Chapels under ground, where they carefully fed this _Thermutic Serpent_, as a _sacred Genius_[393]. Footnote 393: _Ælian de Animalibus_, lib. x. _Conrad. Gesner. de Serp._ p. 32. The _Egyptians_ also paid divine Honours to the _Crocodile_, that monstrous kind of Serpent, particularly the Inhabitants of _Arsinoë_, and they who dwelt in the Neighbourhood of _Thebes_, and the Lake _Mæris_; among whom ’twas fed by their Priests with Bread, Wine, Flesh, and diverse Rarities[394]. Footnote 394: _In Jonstonus de Quadruped_, cap. viii. p. 142. _THÆAUTUS_, so often mentioned by _Sanchoniatho_, attributed some Deity to the Nature of the Serpent; an Opinion approved by the _Phenicians_, therefore look’d upon as holy and immortal, and comes into the sacred Mysteries[395]. Footnote 395: _Euseb. Præp. Evangel._ l. i. c. 10. from _Philo Biblius_, the Translator of _Sanchon_. They represented the World by a Circle, in the middle of which was a Serpent, representing the good Demon, or Genius of the World, by which ’tis animated, and is a _Symbol_ of the Almighty Creator. Behold here the Blasphemy of Satan, in giving to God the Form of a Serpent, which he had borrow’d himself to make war against God in Paradise. They sometimes represented their Gods with the Bodies of Serpents, and honour’d those odious Animals with divine Worship, as Symbols of _Apollo_, of the _Sun_, and of _Medicine_, and were put into the Charge of _Ceres_ and _Proserpine_.