rain as a serpent, made when these expressions had become unintelligible; in the same way as the worship of crocodiles, cats, etc., are traced back to a solar myth, the meaning of which had been forgotten.[595] The apparently mutually contradictory significations which are attached to the serpent in the myth and the worship must be traced back, not to opposite views held by different races, but to varying modes of understanding the myth, which might all emanate from the idea of the serpent. How often in the mythology of one and the same people we find the same object employed for the apperception of most different, or even opposite, things! The adoration of the Serpent is also demonstrable of the Hebrews when nomadising in the desert; for only in this sense can the Brazen Serpent be understood, the adoration of which was commenced by the Hebrews of the desert and continued to the latest times (Num. XXI. 9, 2 Kings XVIII. 4). It also deserves notice that that Hebrew tribe which had from the earliest times the care of religious affairs and provided the worship called itself ‘Sons of the Serpent,’ Benê Lêvî[596] (see supra, p. 183), and that it was these who fell upon their compatriots when on the exodus from Egypt they were about to introduce a solar element into their religion by the adoration of the Golden Calf.[597] It was the Sons of Levi, the priests of the ancient religion of the nomads, who defended conservatism, and would not allow the solar bull-worship to raise its head.[598] Accordingly, the tribal designation ‘Sons of the Serpent’ belongs to the long list of such names which are derived from animals.[599] Lubbock and Tylor, especially, have put this species of tribal nomenclature into connexion with the so-called Totemism; but in any case it is natural to assume that the original relation of the animal to the origin of the tribe or nation which claims it as its ancestor is purely mythological. § 6. Thus, then, the most ancient religion of the Hebrews in the desert was derived immediately from the myths of the nomads. To complete the above exposition, it is now only needful to refer to the traces of Lunar worship, which were treated in a previous chapter (pp. 158–160).