Serpent, in Mythology, was a common symbol of the sun, and he is represented biting his tail, and with his body formed into a circle, in order to indicate the ordinary course of this luminary. The serpent was also the symbol of Medicine, and of the gods which presided over it, as of Apollo and Aesculapius; and this animal was the object of very ancient and general worship, under various appellations and characters. In most of the ancient rites we find some allusion to the serpent, under the several titles of Ob, Ops, Python, and the like. This idolatry is alluded to by Moses. The woman at Endor who had a familiar spirit is called Oub, or Ob, which is interpreted Pythonissa. The place where she resided, says Bryant, seems to have been named from the worship there instituted; for Endor is compounded of En-ador, and signifies fons Pythonis, “the fountain of light,” the oracle of the god Ador, which oracle was probably founded by the Canaanites, and had never been totally suppressed. His pillar was also called Abbadir or Abadir, compounded of ab and adir, and meaning the serpent deity Addir, the same as Adorns.

In the orgies of Bacchus, the persons who partook of the ceremony used to carry serpents in their hands, and with horrid screams call upon Eva, being, according to the writer just mentioned, the same as epha or opha, which the Greeks rendered ophis, and by it denoted a serpent. These ceremonies and this symbolical worship began among the Magi, who were the sons of Chus; and by them they were propagated in various parts. Wherever the Ammonians founded any places of worship, and introduced their rites, there was generally some story of a serpent. There was a legend about a serpent at Colchis, at Thebes, at Delphi, and at other places. The Greeks called Apollo himself Python, which is the same as Opis, Oupis, and Oub.

In Egypt there was a serpent named Thermuthis, which was looked upon as sacred; and the natives arc said to have made use of it as a royal tiara, with which they ornamented the statues of Isis. The kings of Egypt wore high bonnets, terminating in a round ball, and surrounded with figures of asps; and the priests had likewise the representation of serpents upon their bonnets.

Abadon, or Abaddon, mentioned in the Revelations (xx. 2), is supposed by Bryant to have been the name of the Ophite god, with whose worship the world had been so long infected. This worship began among the people of Chaldaea, who built the city of Ophis upon the Tigris, and were greatly addicted to divination and to the worship of the serpent. From Chaldaea the worship passed into Egypt, where the serpent deity was called Canoph, Can-eph, and C-neph. It had also the name of Ob or Oub, and was the same as the Basiliscus or royal serpent, the same as the Thermuthis, and made use of by way of ornament to the statues: of[7:20:156] their gods. The chief deity of Egypt is said to have been Vulcan, who was styled Opas. He was the same as Osiris, the Sun; and there were pillars sacred to him, with curious hieroglyphical inscriptions bearing the same name, whence, among the Greeks, who copied from the Egyptians, every thing gradually tapering to a point was styled obelos, or obeliscus.

As the worship of the serpent began among the sons of Chus, Bryant conjectures, that from thence they were denominated Aethiopians and Aithiopians, from Ath-ope or Ath-opes, the god whom they worshipped, and not from their complexion. The Aethiopes brought these rites into Greece, and called the island where they first established them, Ellopia, Solis Serpentis insula, the same with Euboea, or Oubaia, “the serpent island.” The same learned writer discovers traces of the serpent-worship among the Hyperboreans, at Rhodes, in Phrygia, and upon the Hellespont; in the island Cyprus, in Crete, among the Athenians; in the name of Cecrops, among the natives of Thebes in Boeotia, among the Lacedaemonians, in Italy, in Syria; and in the names of many places, as well as of the people, where the Ophites settled. One of the most early heresies introduced into the Christian church was that of the Ophitae. (Bryant’s Analysis of Ancient Mythology, vol. i. p. 43 and 473.)