The Worship of the Serpent
The Worship of the Serpent by John Bathurst Deane is an 1833 study of snake worship and specifically the snake mentioned in the Book of Genesis who convinced Eve to eat the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, leading her to convince Adam to do the same.
Overview
A number of Gnostic texts, some only discovered recently such as those from the Nag Hammadi Library expound on an idea of knowledge and how the serpent gave knowledge to man. Deane draws a number of conclusions and makes certain guesses regarding snake worship, not just confined to Europe, but indeed all over the world. Deane goes on in his title to list a number of associations to the serpent such as the dragon and the leviathan. So thorough (albeit outdated) is his research, that he has "traced THE WORSHIP OF THE SERPENT from Babylonia, east and west, through Persia, Hindûstan, China, Mexico, Britain, Scandinavia, Italy, Illyricum, Thrace, Greece, Asia Minor, and Phœnicia." (Ch VIII)
