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Saints and Serpents

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 October 2024

Walter Gumbley O.P.
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Extract

Art both religious and profane has remembered the curse of the serpent: ‘I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed; she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel” (Gen. iii, 15). In pagan art we see the agony of man in Laocoon, in Christian art we see the triumph of the Blessed Mother of God. Amongst many strange cults we see man appeasing the serpent in idolatrous worship, but Christianity has crushed its power for evil. It is in this light, however summarily we may dismiss the legends of hagiography, that we can read their origin, which is in casting out devils and the powers of darkness. Most critics, we presume, would consider the many stories of saints driving away snakes as allegories of their triumph over sin, but there are still no snakes in Ireland whereas Great Britain retains the unpleasant viper. This driving out of serpents occurs in the biographies of more than a score of saints, of whom fourteen are of France, Britain, or Ireland.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Blackfriars , Volume 17 , Issue 198 , September 1936, pp. 690 - 698
Copyright
Copyright © 1936 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

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References

1 Bollandists, January 15.

2 Died 874. Bollandists, March 13.

3 Bollandists, January 16; Husenbeth, Symbols of the Saints, 1853. s.v. Serpents.

4 Cahier, S.J., Caractéristiques des Saints, Paris, 1867, p. 748.

5 Cahier, ibid.

6 Bollandists, May 23. He died in 547.

7 Cahier, ibid.; Holweck, Biographical Dictionary of Saints, 55.

8 Cahier, ibid.; Bollandists, September 26.

9 Cahier, 748; Bollandists, May 16.

10 Cahier, ibid.

11 Cahier, ibid.

12 F. J. Cowles, Dust of Years, p. 36 (Sands & Co.).

13 Bollandists, January 24.

14 Cahier, ibid.; Bollandists, January 31.

15 Cahier, ibid.

16 Bollandists, July 24; Cahier, ibid.

17 Bollandists, June 3; Cahier, ibid.

18 Cahier, ibid.

19 Bollandists, January 30; Holweck, 789.

20 Cahier, ibid.; Husenbeth.

21 Bollandists, May 19.

22 Bollandists, September 24.

23 Bollandists, February 12; Holweck, s.v. Viridiana, 1025; Husenbeth, s.v. Serpents; Cahier.

24 Bollandists, September 28; Husenbeth, ibid.

25 Bollandists, July 9; Holweck, s.v. Anatolia, 69.

26 Bollandists, September 23, September 16, and July 24.

27 Holweck, 209.

28 Cahier, ibid.

29 Holweck, 375.

30 Holweck, 915.

31 Cahier; Butler's Lives of the Saints; December 17.

32 Holweck, 837; Bollandists, June 13.

33 Bollandists, April 16; Husenbeth, s.v. Serpents.

34 Holweck. 815; Bollandists, March 5.

35 Cahier, s.v. Serpents; Husenbeth calls it an eel, s.v.

36 Cahier, ibid.; Bollandists, January 22.

37 Holweck, 160.

38 Bollandists, August 31; Cahier.

39 Life by Fr. B. Wilberforce.

40 Dominican Breviary.