Sunday, August 13, 2006

Of Jesus the True Serpent

When James Jordan came to Dayton last year, he spoke in one of his lectures of how we should see the serpent in the Garden of Eden as sent by God to disciple and instruct Adam and Eve in the principles of kingship, preparatory to their royal investiture as rulers of the lands outside the garden (this is why it is emphasized that the serpent is a beast of the field/land, as opposed to the garden, and why his distinguishing characteristic is the kingly property of subtlety/cunning/wisdom). When, in envy of mankind, the serpent deceived the man and woman, leading them to take of the fruit God had for a time witheld from them, he was in a twisted way fulfilling his God-given mission--he was sent to prepare the human couple to eat of the tree, and he did so in a hasty, rudimentary way, asking them legitimate, wisdom-encouraging questions, but framing them so as to mislead rather than instruct. Jordan furthermore asserted that God's promise that death would follow eating of the tree should not be seen as a threat, but a cryptic message of hope for a fuller existence. God gave the temporary prohibition against eating the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil immediately after putting Adam into a death-sleep, tearing him apart, and "resurrecting" him as a fuller creation: Man-and-Woman, the multipersonal self. Similarly, had Adam waited to eat of the fruit till God permitted it, he would have undergone another death-and-resurrection transformation, emerging as a fuller, more richly human being. When man stole the fruit, acquiring the gnosis (knowledge of good and evil) that it embodied, that knowledge became a curse to him. The death that should have lead to life was given a "sting," and it was made semi-permanent. God did invest him as a king, providing him with kingly raiment, but that raiment was stained with the blood of the creation he had violated by his disobedience. Man was sent out of the garden into the land, not as a wise steward-king, but as a bloodstained, manipulative tyrant.

I've recently had some additional thoughts about all of this, especially about the typology of the serpent. Ancient Israel was oft troubled by idolatry in the form of various fertility cults, worship of Baal (the male fertility god) and Ashtoreth (the mother-goddess). These complimentary deities, symbols of the masculine and feminine principles (yang and yin, respectively), are very often associated with serpents as cultic symbols; and in fact early forms of these deities often combine both principles into a single deity: the serpent-god. There are even highly suggestive Sumerian pictograms portraying the serpent-god coiled around a tree, and two figures, male and female, seated on either side of him (as it were, in the posture of students or disciples). Why did the principles of masculinity and femininity become so overwhelmingly associated with the serpent in pagan mythology? I think it has to do with the fact that when the serpent deceived Adam and Eve, he robbed them of their integrity, their glory, and, in a sense, their true identity. The serpent took these properties for himself, fulfilling for a time his prideful envy of man.

That is, until Christ appeared. Christ came as the True Adam, the true humanity, to win back for mankind the office that the first Adam had, by his disobedience, lost to the serpent. Additionally, it is interesting to note that Christ came not only as the True Man, but also as the True Serpent. The original serpent was meant to be man's instructor in the divine Wisdom prerequisite to partaking of the gnosis-tree; instead, he caused man's relationship to gnosis to become deeply twisted and corrupt, devoid of Wisdom. Christ came and gave us another Tree, the Cross, the sublime mystery of which far surpasses the tepid pseudo-gnosis of the Gnostics, more Zen-like in its paradox than any Buddhist koan. And he did so by becoming a different kind of Serpent: one like that which Moses lifted up in the wilderness, a healing Serpent who mediated the tree-gnosis by eating of the "fruit" of that tree himself, undergoing the death it entailed (a death fallen man could no longer safely endure), being resurrected as a Spiritual Man, and enabling all mankind to reap the benefits.

posted by Jeremy at 3:03 PM

6 Marginalia:

Very helpful post. I've been reading a book called the Alphabet Versus the Goddess. It's sort of a study of Masculine/Feminine, Left Brain/Right Brain stuff. There's some handling of Mythological types and he identifies the Serpent as a distinctly feminine type. Is this legitimate in your opinion? Let me know.

By  Josh, at 8:58 AM  

I should say distinctly feminine in pre-literate mythologies.

By  Josh, at 8:59 AM  

hott, Jeremy. I'd forgotten all about Jordan's whole explanation of the serpent.

By  Anonymous, at 3:24 PM  

Josh,

I don't know as I'm qualified to say. The religion of the Minoans seems to have revolved around some sort of serpent-handler goddess. I don't know if the serpents were in that case supposed to represent the goddess, or whether they were her servants (like the dragons who pulled Medea's chariot). My impression has been that the serpent was more generally associated with fertility cults as a whole.

By  Jeremy, at 8:09 PM  

Oh no! I always forget to go see your blog because it doesn't appear on my subscription list. I see that I've been missing out on some intriguing stuff, too.

By  Anonymous, at 10:19 PM  

Tank,

This post is hot. The one thing that doesn't quite ring true to me (yet) is the idea that "on that day you shall surely die" isn't meant as a threat. It's meant to discourage them from eating of the tree. If X, then Y, and Y is something which is sucky. This seems like a threat.

Don't know if this matters in the grand scheme of things, though. The rest of this is really interesting. To be honest, though, I had a hard time buying the Jesus as Snake thing until you reminded me of Moses' staff. Sorry, though...you and Jordan are just way smarter than I am, I have nothing new to offer this post other than praise.

Although, again, the Ricky Gervais thing about the Curse and what the snake is thinking is absolutely hilarious. Check it out on youtube.

Sucking,

Josh

By  Anonymous, at 2:17 AM  

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