snakes

• snakes

60:3.2060,000,000 years ago, though the land rep­tiles were on the de­cline, the di­no­saurs con­tin­ued as monar­chs of the land, the lead now be­ing taken by the more ag­ile and ac­tive types of the smaller leap­ing kan­ga­roo va­ri­eties of the car­niv­o­rous di­no­saurs. But some­time pre­vi­ously there had ap­peared new types of the her­biv­o­rous di­no­saurs, whose rapid in­crease was due to the ap­pear­ance of the grass fam­ily of land plants. One of these new grass-eat­ing di­no­saurs was a true quadruped hav­ing two horns and a cape­like shoul­der flange. The land type of tur­tle, twenty feet across, ap­peared as did also the mod­ern croc­o­dile and true snakes of the mod­ern type. Great changes were also oc­cur­ring among the fishes and other forms of ma­rine life.

• descended from nonprogressive reptiles

61:2.6Along with the dis­ap­pear­ance of the di­no­saurs, other and great changes oc­curred in the var­i­ous branches of the saurian fam­ily. The sur­viv­ing mem­bers of the early rep­til­ian fam­i­lies are tur­tles, snakes, and croc­o­diles, to­gether with the ven­er­a­ble frog, the only re­main­ing group rep­re­sen­ta­tive of man’s ear­lier an­ces­tors.

• snakes

61:3.14Birds con­tin­ued to evolve, though few marked changes oc­curred. Rep­tiles were sim­i­lar to mod­ern types—snakes, croc­o­diles, and tur­tles.

• descended from nonprogressive reptiles

65:2.10The king­dom of rep­tiles, de­scended from the frog fam­ily, is to­day rep­re­sented by four sur­viv­ing di­vi­sions: two non­pro­gres­sive, snakes and lizards, to­gether with their cousins, al­li­ga­tors and tur­tles; one par­tially pro­gres­sive, the bird fam­ily, and the fourth, the an­ces­tors of mam­mals and the di­rect line of de­scent of the hu­man species. But though long de­parted, the mas­sive­ness of the pass­ing Rep­tilia found echo in the ele­phant and mastodon, while their pe­cu­liar forms were per­pet­u­ated in the leap­ing kan­ga­roos.

• childless wives believed to become s. in spirit world

83:7.2Among prim­i­tive peo­ples only about one half the mar­riages proved sat­is­fac­tory. The most fre­quent cause for sep­a­ra­tion was bar­ren­ness, which was al­ways blamed on the wife; and child­less wives were be­lieved to be­come snakes in the spirit world. Un­der the more prim­i­tive mores, di­vorce was had at the op­tion of the man alone, and these stan­dards have per­sisted to the twen­ti­eth cen­tury among some peo­ples.

• ancient Hebrews worshiped
• snake charming; love cult shamans were venom addicts
• symbol of Greek medicine

85:3.3The He­brews wor­shiped ser­pents down to the days of King Hezekiah, and the Hin­dus still main­tain friendly re­la­tions with their house snakes. The Chi­nese wor­ship of the dragon is a sur­vival of the snake cults. The wis­dom of the ser­pent was a sym­bol of Greek med­i­cine and is still em­ployed as an em­blem by mod­ern physi­cians. The art of snake charm­ing has been handed down from the days of the fe­male shamans of the snake love cult, who, as the re­sult of daily snake bites, be­came im­mune, in fact, be­came gen­uine venom ad­dicts and could not get along with­out this poi­son.

• became fetish animals
• mouthpiece of evil spirits to Phoenicians and Jews

88:1.5When an­i­mals be­came fe­tishes, there en­sued the taboos on eat­ing the flesh of the fe­tish an­i­mal. Apes and mon­keys, be­cause of re­sem­blance to man, early be­came fe­tish an­i­mals; later, snakes, birds, and swine were also sim­i­larly re­garded. At one time the cow was a fe­tish, the milk be­ing taboo while the exc­reta were highly es­teemed. The ser­pent was revered in Pales­tine, es­pe­cially by the Phoeni­cians, who, along with the Jews, con­sid­ered it to be the mouth­piece of evil spir­its. Even many mod­erns be­lieve in the charm pow­ers of rep­tiles. From Ara­bia on through In­dia to the snake dance of the Mo­qui tribe of red men the ser­pent has been revered.

• fatality of bites attributed to magic of sorcerer

88:4.8Magic is nat­u­ral to a sav­age. He be­lieves that an en­emy can ac­tu­ally be killed by prac­tic­ing sor­cery on his shin­gled hair or fin­ger­nail trim­mings. The fa­tal­ity of snake bites was at­tributed to the magic of the sor­cerer. The dif­fi­culty in com­bat­ing magic arises from the fact that fear can kill. Prim­i­tive peo­ples so feared magic that it did ac­tu­ally kill, and such re­sults were suf­fi­cient to sub­stan­ti­ate this er­ro­neous be­lief. In case of fail­ure there was al­ways some plau­si­ble ex­pla­na­tion; the cure for de­fec­tive magic was more magic.

• be wise as serpents

140:8.13He made it clear that in­dis­crim­i­nate kind­ness may be blamed for many so­cial evils. The fol­low­ing day Je­sus def­i­nitely in­structed Ju­das that no apos­tolic funds were to be given out as alms ex­cept upon his re­quest or upon the joint pe­ti­tion of two of the apos­tles. In all these mat­ters it was the prac­tice of Je­sus al­ways to say, “Be as wise as ser­pents but as harm­less as doves.” It seemed to be his pur­pose in all so­cial sit­u­a­tions to teach pa­tience, tol­er­ance, and for­give­ness.

• be wise as serpents

140:9.3Je­sus ad­vised them to take nei­ther money nor ex­tra cloth­ing, say­ing, “The la­borer is wor­thy of his hire.” And fi­nally he said: “Be­hold I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves; be you there­fore as wise as ser­pents and as harm­less as doves. But take heed, for your en­e­mies will bring you up be­fore their coun­cils, while in their syn­a­gogues they will cas­ti­gate you. Be­fore gov­er­nors and rulers you will be brought be­cause you be­lieve this gospel, and your very tes­ti­mony shall be a wit­ness for me to them. And when they lead you to judg­ment, be not anx­ious about what you shall say, for the spirit of my Fa­ther in­dwells you and will at such a time speak through you. Some of you will be put to death, and be­fore you es­tab­lish the king­dom on earth, you will be hated by many peo­ples be­cause of this gospel; but fear not; I will be with you, and my spirit shall go be­fore you into all the world. And my Fa­ther’s pres­ence will abide with you while you go first to the Jews, then to the gen­tiles.”

• if your child asks for a watersnake

144:2.4“Which of you who is a fa­ther, if his son asks un­wisely, would hes­i­tate to give in ac­cor­dance with pa­ren­tal wis­dom rather than in the terms of the son’s faulty pe­ti­tion? If the child needs a loaf, will you give him a stone just be­cause he un­wisely asks for it? If your son needs a fish, will you give him a wa­ter­snake just be­cause it may chance to come up in the net with the fish and the child fool­ishly asks for the ser­pent? If you, then, be­ing mor­tal and fi­nite, know how to an­swer prayer and give good and ap­pro­pri­ate gifts to your chil­dren, how much more shall your heav­enly Fa­ther give the spirit and many ad­di­tional bless­ings to those who ask him? Men ought al­ways to pray and not be­come dis­cour­aged.

• be wise as serpents

163:1.3Be­fore Je­sus laid his hands upon the heads of the sev­enty to set them apart as gospel mes­sen­gers, ad­dress­ing them, he said: “The har­vest is in­deed plen­teous, but the la­bor­ers are few; there­fore I ex­hort all of you to pray that the Lord of the har­vest will send still other la­bor­ers into his har­vest. I am about to set you apart as mes­sen­gers of the king­dom; I am about to send you to Jew and gen­tile as lambs among wolves. As you go your ways, two and two, I in­struct you to carry nei­ther purse nor ex­tra cloth­ing, for you go forth on this first mis­sion for only a short sea­son. Salute no man by the way, at­tend only to your work. When­ever you go to stay at a home, first say: Peace be to this house­hold. If those who love peace live therein, you shall abide there; if not, then shall you de­part. And hav­ing se­lected this home, re­main there for your stay in that city, eat­ing and drink­ing what­ever is set be­fore you. And you do this be­cause the la­borer is wor­thy of his sus­te­nance. Move not from house to house be­cause a bet­ter lodg­ing may be of­fered. Re­mem­ber, as you go forth pro­claim­ing peace on earth and good will among men, you must con­tend with bit­ter and self-de­ceived en­e­mies; there­fore be as wise as ser­pents while you are also as harm­less as doves.

• religious leaders called offspring of vipers

175:1.21“Woe upon you, chil­dren of evil! John did truly call you the off­spring of vipers, and I ask how can you es­cape the judg­ment that John pro­nounced upon you?

• be wise as serpents

178:1.7Dis­play wis­dom and ex­hibit sagac­ity in your deal­ings with un­be­liev­ing civil rulers. By dis­cre­tion show your­selves to be ex­pert in iron­ing out mi­nor dis­agree­ments and in ad­just­ing tri­fling mis­un­der­stand­ings. In ev­ery pos­si­ble way—in ev­ery­thing short of your spir­i­tual al­le­giance to the rulers of the uni­verse—seek to live peace­ably with all men. Be you al­ways as wise as ser­pents but as harm­less as doves.