isis unveiled, vol 2: chapter x (the devil)

"But we ought, perhaps, to explain the ancient use of allegory and symbology. The truth in the former was left to be deduced; the symbol expressed some abstract quality of the Deity, which the laity could easily apprehend. Its higher sense terminated there; and it was employed by the multitude thenceforth as an image to [...]

isis unveiled, vol 2: chapter x (the devil)

“From the remotest antiquity the serpent was held by every people in the greatest veneration, as the embodiment of Divine Wisdom and the symbol of spirit, and we know from Sanchoniathon that it was Hermes or Thoth who was the first to regard the serpent as “the most spirit-like of all the reptiles”; and the [...]