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Page 370

 

8ervveet s THE NEW SCHAFF-IIERZOG 370

for rain are made to the nag in spring and autumn; Semites generally bring it into relation with springs. It is at times the protector of persons of sanctity or eminence, as when Scipio Africanus and Nero were believed to have been watched over by a snake, or when two are reported to have observed the first purification of Confucius, or when one shielded the Buddha from the sun's rays. On the other hand, it may be regarded as malevolent, as when the Hurons see in it the cause of disease, Australian tribes regard it as bringing death into the world, and the Puma Indians as the source of kidney and stomach troubles in children. So St. Patrick drives it from Ireland, Rudra is its destroyer in India, Buddha in infancy strangles one, as does Krishna, while Hercules kills two. In the Troad there was a tribe sprung from a serpent (Strabo, xiii. 1, 14), Xlian (De animalibus, xii. 39) tells of a race in Phrygia (Ophiogenae) who were sprung from a woman and a serpent; Alexander was credited with serpent paternity (Plutarch, " Life of Alexander," ii.), and the Natchez, Linni Lenape, Huron, and Menominee Indians claim ancestry from it as one of their totems, as do some African tribes. The reverse relation is held as true, and after death a man's soul may inhabit the body of a snake (for cases among the Africans consult E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, ii. 8, 239-242, 310, 347, London, 1903)-the case of Xneas has already been noted. It was constantly associated with tombs, and thence doubtless with the underworld, with which in part may be connected its repute for wisdom. In the Japanese Nihongi a hero is made to reappear in serpent form to take vengeance upon his murderers.

BIHmoaRAPBY: On the serpent in the Bible consult: J. Buxtorf, Ezercitationee ad hddor;am, pp. 458-492, Basil, 1859; G. Menken, Schriften, vi. 349-411, Bremen, 1858; P. Scholz, Gtitzendiend and Zauberwesen bei den allen Hebrdern, pp. 101-104, Regensburg, 1877; W. R. Smith, Journal of Philology, ix (1880), 99-100; W. Sharpe, Humanity and the Serpent of Genesis, Boston, 1886; J. P. Val d Eremss, The Serpent of Eden, London, 1888; W. H. Ward, American Antiquarian, xx (1898), 162-165; J. G. Frazer, Golden Bough, ii. 428-427, London, 1900; V. Zapletal, Der Totemismus and die Religion rarael, pp. 88-89, Freiburg and Switzerland, 1901; DB, iii. 510-511; EB, iii. 3387-88; JE, ix. 212-213; R. G. Murison, in American Journal of Semitic Language and Literature, xxi. 115-130; and the commentaries on the passages adduced in the text.

On the worship, etc., outside of Biblical mention con- sult: J. B. Deane, The Worship of the Serpent Traced throughout the World, London, 1833 (most later books cite Deane, but his work is to be used with the greatest caution); H. R. Sehoolcraft, Notes on the Iroquois: An· tiquitim and general Hist. of Western New York, 1848; W. H. Prescott, History of the Conquest of Mexico, New York, 1843 idem, Hid. of the Conquest of Peru, ib. 1847 (both of these works are standard, and exist in almost numberless cheap reprints); E. G. Squier, The Serpent Symbol and the Worship of the Reciprocal Principles of Nature in North America, New York 1851 (of little value); J. C. M. Boudin, irtudes anthropolopiques, Paris, 1864; J. Fergusson, Tree and Serpent Worship, London, 1869 (one of the best); W. R. Cooper, The Serpent Myths o Ancient Egypt, London, 1873; C. Schoebel, Le Myths de la femme et du serpent, Paris, 1876; H. Clarke and C. S. Wake, Serpent and Siva Worship in America, Africa, Asia, London, 1877 (to be used with caution); H. Jennings: The Rosicrucians, with a Chapter on Serpent-Worshippers, new ad.. London, 1879; W. H. Ward, in Bibliotheca Sacra, xxxviii (1881), 209-253; J. G. Bourke. The Snake Dance of the Moquis of Arizona, New York, 1884; A. Revilie,

Native Religions of Mexico and Peru, London, 1884; C. W. King, The Gnostics and their Remains, ib. 1887; C. S. Wake, Serpent Worship and Other Essays, London, 1887; idem, Serpent Worship and Totemism, ib. 1888; Ophiolatreia: an Account of . . . Serpent Worship, privately printed. 1889 (connects serpent-worship and phallicism); C. F. Oldham, in Royal Asiatic Society's Journal, 1891, pp. 361-392, 1901, pp. 461-473 (on worship in India); F. T. Elworthy, The Evil Eye, London, 1895; J. W. Fawkes, Comparison of Sia and Tusayan Snake Ceremonials, Washington, 1895; J. B. Ambrosetti, El Simbolo de la Srrpiente en la alfareria funeraria de la region calchaqui, Buenos Aires, 1896 D. G. Brinton, Myths of the New World, Philadelphia, 1896; J. W. Fawkes in Reports of the Bureau of American Ethnology, xvi (1897), 287 312, mix (1900), 957-1011 · Pausanias, ad. Frazer, 8 vols., London and New York 1898; A. Wilder, Serpent as a Symbol, in Metaphysical Magazine, xv (1901),1-20; E. Crawley, Mystic Rose, pp. 192 sqq., New York, 1902; H. R. Voth, The Oraibi Summer Snake Ceremony, Chicago, 1903; S. Reinach in Gazette des beaus-arts, III., xxaii (1904), 13-23 (on finds in Crete); L. Frobenius Des Zeitalter des Sonnengottes, vol. i., Berlin, 1904; H. E. Sampson, The Message of the Sun, and the Cult of the Cross and Serpent, London, 1904; C. F. Oldham, The Sun and the Serpent: a Contribution to the History of Serpent Worship, London, 1905; E. Am_linesu, Du r6ledesserpentsdana Is croyances relipieumsdel1pypte, in RHR, li (1905), 335-360, Iii (1905), 1-32; R. M. Burrows, The Discoveries in Crete, pp. 137-138 et passim New York, 1907; J. Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, 2d ed., London and New York, 1908 (important); J. Meier, in Anthropos, iii (1908),1005-1029 (New Pomerania); S. Reinach, Orpheus, passim, New York, 1909; C. Spiess, Die Joholn-Gottheit and ihr Schlanpenkult, Brunswick, 1910; G. A. J. Hazen, in Bijdrngen tot de taal-lan den volkenkunde van Nederlandseh-Indie, =mix. 175-204; A. Kemp-Welch, The Woman-headed Serpent in Art, in 18th Century and After, Iii. 983-991; L. Stjgda in Globus, Ixxv. 180-163; and, in general, works oa tMWs in various countries, as well as those on the different religions of the world.

SERVATIUS, sir-v6'shi-us, SAINT: Gallic bishop of the fourth century. He is mentioned as one of those present at the Synod of Sardica in 347, and is apparently identical with one of the envoys from Magnentius to Constantius in 350, as well as with the Servatio, bishop of Tongres, who bravely defended Athanasian orthodoxy at the Synod of Rimini in 359. It is, on the other hand, doubtful whether he attended a provincial synod said to have been held at Cologne in 346. According to Gregory of Tours (Historia Francorum, ii. 5; cf. De gloria confessorum, hod.), a Servatius or Arvatius (the latter the better reading) was bishop of Tongres about the time of the Hun invasions under Attila. Learning of the approach of the barbarians, he made pilgrimages to Rome to avert, if possible, by prayers at the tomb of St. Peter the destruction which threatened Tongres, only to receive the divine command to return to his doomed city. He obeyed, and removed to Maestricht, where he died in 450, a year before Tongres was sacked by the Huns. It would seem, however, that the Hun invasion has here been confused with some earlier barbarian inroad.

A very ancient tradition of the Church at MaeStricht gives May 13, 384, as the date of the death of Servatius of Tongres, and his grave soon became a favorite place of pilgrimage, so that in 562 his remains were removed to a church erected in his honor. In 726, after the victory of Charles Martel over the Saracens on St. Servatius' day, the bones of the saint found their final resting-place, though relics found their way to various places, as Duisburg, Worms, and especially Quedlinburg. In medieval