Ida, for the decision of the matter, to whom the fancied prize was to be given. The legend is indeed much confused, and distorted; but from the whole laid together, there appears a plain allusion to this "forbidden fruit" through the medium of a woman having proved the source of sorrow and mortality. Paris, like other mythic heroes, is said to have travelled over many parts of the world, and various places are mentioned in different authors, as having been the actual scenes of the transaction: but this only proves how widely the memorials had spread of paradise, and the effects attendant upon the fall of man.* There were also some curious ceremonies among the ancients connected with matrimony, or at least the object of it; such as throwing an apple," while the women wore serpents about their wrists, by way of bracelets:† which leads us to consider rather more closely the particular form, which the tempter assumed when he so artfully attacked and overcame our first parents.

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Chalcidius to Timous, cited by Le Clerc‡ in his notes on Grotius, mentions "that serpent

* Nat. Com. vi. 23. p. 198.

+1 Aristan. lib. i. Ep. 10. Arch. Attic. Rous. lib. iv. 5. p. 161.

Grot. de Verit. lib. i. sec. 16.

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who, by his evil persuasions, deceived the "first of mankind;" and as one of his titles was 0012 Ophis, it was from thence, according to a very probable conjecture, that the prince of those who contended with the king of heaven, was by Pherecydes* called Opiovevs Ophioneus; who is described by Cœlius Rhodiginus, as "dæmoniacum serpentem qui antesignanus "fuerit agminis a divinæ mentis placito defi"cientis." Of the fall of wicked angels, who kept not their first estate, but became enemies of God and heaven, the ancients had many traditions; some of the most remarkable of which are those relating to the giants and Titans invading the abodes of bliss, and being from thence cast down into hell or tartarus, where they are represented as suffering the torments of eternal fire.† Homer, Plutarch, and others, have preserved memorials of a like nature;

* Euseb. lib. i. cap. 10. Cal. Rhod. Ant. ii. 7. Stillingfleet. Orig. Sac. iii. 3.

+ Plutarch calls them “ τους Θεηλατους και ουρανοπετους "dayovas demons driven from (the presence of) God, and 'falling down from heaven." See also Dickenson. Phys. Vet. et. Ver. p. 10. These Titans and giants are generally represented as half serpents, on ancient marbles and vases. Æneid vi. 580. Hom. Iliad xix. 129, with Dacier's note on the place, and Justin Martyr, Cohort. ad Græc. p. 28.

and it is also certain that the great deceiver of mankind soon turned that alienation of heart from the true God, of which he had been the source, to such account, as to cause himself to be made the object of worship by the deluded generations of mankind. The commencement of, perhaps, the earliest species of idolatry, was in the consecration of memorials of that paradise which man had lost, through the suggestions of the tempter. These memorials, as has been shewn, consisted of sacred groves or gardens, with more or less of the symbols of Eden, and the other circumstances connected with it, in proportion as the traditions of truth existing among them, were more or less vivid. As the serpent had made so conspicuous a figure in the affecting scene which took place in that celebrated garden, he was very soon considered as the deity of the place, and adored accordingly. And as mankind sprang from one origin, and after the flood were scattered over the face of the whole earth, they carried with them, wherever they went, the rites of this awful idolatry; mingled, however, with many traces of the primitive history. Hence the worship of the serpent is to be met with every where: and under his symbol, nature herself, and the vast expanse of the heavens, were

said to have been described, in the ritual of Zoroaster. The like was mentioned in the octateuch of Ostanes; and, moreover, that in Persis and other parts of the east, temples. were erected, and festivals instituted to the honour of the serpent tribe, esteeming "them "the supreme of all gods, and the superinten"dants of the whole world."* The worship is said to have begun in Chaldea, and from thence passed into Egypt. From the banks of the Nile, it seems to have overspread all the shores of the Mediterranean, as well as the islands of that vast sea. Tenos, one of the Cyclades, was once supposed to have swarmed with serpents; and the same legend is mentioned as to Rhodes, Seriphus, Euboea, Crete, and Cyprus. Of what particular species they were, is not specifically mentioned, except that in the last mentioned island, about Paphos, "there was a kind of serpent with two legs." By this, is meant the Ophite race, or colonies who brought the idolatry and traditions connected with it from Egypt. Legendary memorials, similar to these, prevailed also at Athens and Sparta, at Thebes in Boeotia, at Argos, and Amyclæ, in Italy. Innumerable

• Bryant de Ophiolat. vol. ii. et al.

places intimately connected with them, received of consequence their names from the titles of this monster deity. Hence we hear of cities, hills, rivers, and countries called Opis, Ophis, Ophionia, Ophioessa, Ophiodes, and Ophiusa; also Europus, Ellopus, Oropus, Asopus, Inopus, and Ethiopia. Many more might be added, but in the compass of a single treatise, it is scarcely possible to do more than glance at the subject. All these various places will be found connected with some of the paradisaical traditions; such as the victory of a divine hero over the serpent, or the like. As death entered the world through his devices, the ancient heathen more especially seem to have made the graves of their great men, the scenes of their symbolic memorials. When, therefore, one of their heroes died, either in battle or otherwise, (and what was very remarkable, there was generally some legend of a conflict with a serpent attached to his history) they enclosed a space of ground of some acres, cast up a mound,* planted certain trees, established rites of fire, and often fabled that either Gryphins, or some other compound

* Sometimes a whole society or college of hierophants appears to have resided on the sacred Tumulus. See a curious mention of a place of this sort in Philostratus de Vit. Apoll. lib. i. cap. 24. p. 31. And the iii. lib. passim.