For Christians, the iconic depiction of Christ crucified is the central linchpin of their faith: the moment of Christ taking on sin and dying a convict’s death in our stead. Yet this scene on the cross plays with a typology that many Christians may be far less comfortable with, one in which certain verses come to life to understand that central moment of death and “taking on” of the human condition in a way that is truly the “foolishness/scandal of the cross.”[1]
The focus of this particular gallery is to examine the typology of the Christ who becomes the serpent, in the perfect act of Kenotic consumption. St. Gregory of Nyssa’s commentary on the Life of Moses[2] undergirds the brunt of this theological imagery. His work is largely interpreted in these images alongside the Orthodox tradition and the work of the icon carver and contemporary theologian Jonathan Pageau. The Eastern Orthodox Church has remained most comfortable with this particular understanding of the snake in Christian iconography and the work it does as the image of Satan, death, sin, but also that which can be lifted up and redeemed in Christ along with every part of creation.[3]
This pictorial journey begins with understanding the image of the snake and the rod symbolically and as a trope, beginning with the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil/the Tree of Life. Moving then to Moses’ serpent-rod, Moses’ Bronze serpent, and Jonah and the Sea Serpent all as prophetic types of Christ, foreshadowing that harrowing scene of crucifixion. We will then move to Crucifixion depictions of various mediums and times, to see how artists have captured it as a dialogue on the Christ-snake and the trees, as symbols transformed into redemption. The snake is understood in Christian vogue to be the ultimate symbol of evil.[4] The Tempter, the being cursed to crawn in the dust from that which man was made and will return to, reappearing transformed into the snakes of the Egyptian sorcerers wielding them to combat God, the seraphim of the Israelite’s desert suffering, the leviathan of Jonah’s punishment, and finally in its full form as the dragon of revelations. But the image begins simply.
The sign of a vertical pole with a snake wrapped around it predates Christian thought, as a primordial or even Jungian Collective Unconscious sign. “The serpent encircling the tree represents a cycle set in motion at that scene of the fall, but is understood across cultures as always acting in a similar ways,” notes Orthodox iconographer and theologian Jonathan Pageau.[5] The central vertical pole is the axis mundi, always central, rigid, and unifying. Representing order of being, or the perfection of the deity of the given culture.[6] The snake coiled or wrapped around shows the living and organic fluctuation of our movement in relation to the axis: in, out, near, far, up and down the center. Thus, in Christian representations of the serpent, it is not, to the astute reader, always inherently negative. “The undulation of the serpent wrapped around the pole creating a geometric “wave” is a primordial understanding of the love of Christ at the center, that reaches out and returns back to the center through continual increase and fluctuation of our knowledge in him.”[7]
The first serpent in the bible appears at the scene of the fall, in the garden of paradise. This particular scene is always framed with the tree as a vertical axis at the center, and the serpent twined around it. Following the logic of the axis as the perfected deity and the fruit of the tree being forbidden for humans, the tree marked the place of order in the garden, at the center, where the singular rule and call to obedience held together the paradise.
The serpent twined around the tree is the fallen figure of Satan, who previously held the angelic position of Cherubim,[8] among the angelic ranks closest to God, meaning “perfect/full knowledge of Christ.”[9] As the serpent in this scene, he represents the perversion of this angelic rank by calling Eve to sin —to break the paradise in asking for knowledge above her place. Thus, the serpent is “cast down,” cursed alongside man.[10] Saint Gregory of Nyssa believes that in participating in the sin, humanity becomes a serpent —becomes dead:
“Holy Scripture calls the father of sin a serpent, so what is born of him must be a serpent too; sin must have the same name as its father. Now since the Apostle asserts that the Lord was made sin for our sake by clothing himself in our sinful nature, it cannot be inappropriate to apply this symbol to him.”[11]
By obeying the serpent, often depicted with a human face, it is no leap to see this scene as a type of adultery against God, to where now the offspring of Eve are serpents: bearing the image of her betrayal: death and sin. We, fallen man, are serpents.
Thus, upon re-revealing himself to the Israelites in captivity, God does so though serpents. Our fallen nature as a serpent, the being with a broken knowledge of God, must be restored. The serpent on an axis reappears in the story of Moses’ rod, Moses bronze serpent, and Jonah in the sea serpent.[12] each image building towards the crucifixion: To redeem his creation and restore its vision instead of casting us all down for eternity, Christ, the perfect God casts himself down, fully into the human condition. He takes on sin and death, clothing himself and is entirely consumed by the serpent for three days. To then be restored and “lifted up” by the father.[13]
The image that develops alongside that of Christ as a serpent is the image of the tree of knowledge and tree of life. The two images, Pageau argues are two sides of the same image, much like the snake. Iconic depictions of Christ on a tree often claim it is the tree of life, which might be true, but they must first be the tree of knowledge, and Christ the serpent one it. It becomes the tree of life, only through the resurrection, that restores the created order into something greater than before.[14]
The dual serpent, and the dual tree are not simply images of the corruption, but are a blessing as well. The serpent brought on the perverted and fallen knowledge, yes, but also a blessing. As Pageau notes, “Although it is right to say the serpent brought about a great evil, it is better to acknowledge the serpent brought about both good and evil, causing us to experience God as mercy and rigor.”[15]
Through the fall and later redemption, humanity has now, like Christ our God, moved along the full length of the serpent axis. We have known the full depravity of perverted knowledge, and also through salvation understood the full length to which our Saviour goes to restore a lost relationship with us. “It is not about how far you are from the center, but instead whether you remember the knowledge of Christ that pulls you back in.”[16]
But all this can only be fully understood if we allow ourselves to acknowledge the full suffering of Christ: He became fully sin. He became fully death.[17] As Gregory of Nyssa noted, it is fully appropriate then to say, “He became a serpent.”[18] This transformation is the full pain of the cross and the torment of which he feared. Last year a local pastor made the observation that Christ’s blood was shed twice on two hills: We recognize the blood of Golgotha, but what about on the Mount of Olives: the bloody sweat in fearful anticipation of the cup of suffering he knew was coming?[19]
The next part of this essay explores various artistic depictions from ancient and contemporary Christian art, where we see the church wrestle wit this exact idea: Christ and the serpent:
Adam and Eve in Eden, Banishment from Eden- Icon of the North door of iconostasis: Fragment, Constantinople (c. 1400-1500)
The first serpent in the bible appears at the scene of the fall, in the garden of paradise. Pre- renaissance illustrations (before the scene became entirely sexualized) of the scene are always framed similarly to this fragment of iconography found on ancient doors. It is an image that centralizes the tree and coiled serpent.
The tree is focused on its trunk, allowing the snake to follow the typological pattern of the coil around the vertical axis. It faces Eve, in the act, not of eating fruit, so much as the scene of conversation. The fall in this particular display is one of the perverted gazes, towards an aim for knowledge above one’s place.
The figure of the serpent, understood to be the tempter, Satan, was a fallen cherubim, one of the two orders of angels whose role is to sing and praise God around the holy throne. The Word Cherubim, meant “fullness of knowledge”, while Seraphim means “Burning serpent.” Here Satan is an interplay of the perversion and fall of these two ideal natures of divine worship. He is a burning serpent, revealing the “knowledge of good and evil” to Even, burning away her innocence, as she participates in his hunger for power above her place through a corruption of the knowledge of God: “You will not die, for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Both these fallen angels as snakes reappear in the typology of snakes as well as the story progresses.
The Curse on the serpent: The serpent coiled around and raised up on the vertical axis is “thrown down” to crawl in the dust that man returns to. Man’s sentence from garden, barred from accessing the Tree of Life, mirrors the curse of the snake in that man, having taken on the Sin of the snake, will also return to dust: the wages of sin are death. The icon here shows a faded cherub standing guard on the red door to the garden, as well as another angel in red. The only red appearing in the scene of the Fall above is the head of the serpent, hinting towards it’s fallen nature from the glory and true fulness of knowledge it once had. Echoing in the scene is also the prophesy that the serpent will be crushed by Adam’s son.
2. Tau-shaped, Double Serpent Crozier- From Cologne, Germany (c.1000a.d.)
The snake reappears in the Christian story in the figure of Moses, this time as a prefiguring of Christ, as the symbol’s typology and redemption begin to take form. Depicted here is a Crosier of the Eastern Orthodox Tradition. Before the Schism of the East and West in 1054, the crosier of the bishop was often tau-shaped implementing several iconographic and typological significances. This older form of the tau-shape shows —not a two-headed snake— but two serpents whose coiled bodies form the axis of the cross itself. Where the west has adopted the less controversial shepherd’s crook, The East boldly maintains this crosier as reimagining of the story of Moses. The scene is that of Israel’s deliverance from Egypt, where Moses is given a sign to show pharaoh as a direct foreshadowing of Christ: He “casts down” his rod, which transforms into a serpent, matching those of the Egyptian sorcerers.
Saint Gregory of Nyssa summarizes this scene best:
“He became a serpent for our sake, so that he could consume and destroy the serpents of Egypt brought to life by the sorcerers. Once he had done this he was changed into a staff again, and by this staff sinners are chastised and those who are climbing the difficult ascent of virtue are supported. With good hope they lean upon the staff of faith, since faith is the assurance of things hoped for. [...] those who receive strength from the Light [...] hold in their hands the staff which is the teaching of faith, and by that staff they will conquer the serpents of Egypt."
Here the crosier literally is simultaneously the rod of Moses in the act of transformation -either into the serpents or back into a staff. The miracle or mystery of the transformation from sin to redemption is further highlighted by the small crucifix at the center of the tau-crosier. The Christ hangs with his head to the right, in the midst of his suffering, captured in the moment of the mystery as he takes on the sins of humanity. It is his transformation into a serpent to consume the serpent indefinably, as he literally “tramples death by death.”
3. Tiled Mosaic of the Bronze Serpent on the Desert and Moses- Matthew Digby Wyatt, All Saints Church, London (1820-1877)
The third appearance of the serpent in the Old Testament is in the wilderness, where the Israelites are punished for their faithlessness in God, as he sends “seraphim” or “fiery” snakes (possibly indicating venomous) to bite them. The artist of this tiled scene includes three types of snakes, creating a strange conversation between this scene and that of the enthroned God: the snakes around the Israelites, the flying seraphim, and the bronze serpent on the cross.
This story is referenced by Jesus to Nicodemus as a foreshadowing of himself:
"The Son of Man must be lifted up as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert. So that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him. [...] No ones who believes in him will be condemned but whoever refuses to believe is condemned already."
Christ must become the serpent, lifted up: he must take on the form of the serpent in its representation as sin and death entirely. As Theologian Wesley Hill notes, “[We] have sinned; [We] are already dead. Cling to the God who raises the dead.”
The Israelites are tormented, and grasp snakes wrapped around and biting them. Second, at the center of the stain glass is the bronze serpent, in the colors of a king cobra, wrapped around the cross-shaped pole. The typology of crucified Christ is obvious, but of greatest note is: first, the tail and the head of the snake. The tail is a Pomme Cross- the circled ends of the three points representing apples as the “redeemed fruit of the fall.” Second, the head of the snake is either that of a man or lion. Either of these indicate a type of Christ as the serpent. This is enforced by the flying snakes around the cross. These figures, play on the word “seraphim” used to describe the serpents who bite the Israelites. (these “seraphim fly around the Christ-figure in a type of Harold, while also doubling as tormentor) They highlight the double-role of the serpent in the story, argues Pageau, “The shiftiness, the double sided aspect of the serpent [...] In terms of duality, we can see clearly here how the serpent is both the disease and cure.”
We see this play out fully in the story of the bronze serpent too. While the serpent “lifted up” is the cure for the Israelites, later, during the reign of king Hezekiah, the Icon is destroyed and the serpent is “cast down” yet again since the Israelites made it an Idol.
4. Image of Jonah and the Fish- In the Roman Catacombs of Sts. Marcellinus and Peter, 7th-8th cen.
The final serpent who appears in Christian typological art in the Old Testament is in the story of Jonah. This particular one has been diluted in Western thought, as the nature of the “fish” that swallows Jonah has shifted. It was not a whale, but a fish, and not just any fish, but what the ancient tradition and art depicted as a leviathan. The leviathan is a sea monster. Jonah was swallowed up by the sea-serpent and remained consumed, entirely contained and eclipsed by the snake for three days. This is a direct reflection of Christ in the tomb for three days. The image of Jonah as a type of Christ is among one of the oldest Christian images, dating back to the catacombs of antient Rome, as Christians etched the scene into the walls of their tombs.
In this particular etching, The Jonah figure is partly swallowed by the serpent, mirroring the partial transformation we saw in the crosier earlier. Not only that, but the Jonah figure’s arms stretch out and his head is turned to the right, all mirroring our common illustration of Christ Crucified.
This connection might be weaker, since Christians did not yet recognize the cross as a Christian symbol, instead viewing it as a scandal and insult. Yet even in these early illustrations there are strong illusions to the tradition that would later develop.
5. “A Crucified Figure of Christ Appearing in a Tree to the Consternation of a Passing Indian” - Etching dated to 1760. Currently in the British Museum
While this artwork does not capture a literal snake as Christ, it theologically works at an idea that runs alongside that of snake typology. That is the works of art that show Christ crucified on a tree, illuding to his cursed state in the act of taking on our condition.
“He bore in his body the covenantal curse that Adam’s Rebellion justly brought upon us. This curse is manifestly symbolized in the shame and humiliation of being hung on a tree.” In Deuteronomy, it is outlined that “If a man committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night on the tree, [...] for a hanged man is cursed by god” Paul fleshes out this connection to Christ writing, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”—
The direct translation of the Spanish on this etching says, “Most holy Christ of/on the Oak,” While Christ on the “tree of life” is an image of triumph over death, it is more subtly a harrowing image of the curse: of the literal becoming of a curse. Just as the snake moves (is raised up and cast down) along the vertical axis, so too the tree of life and tree of knowledge represent two sides of the same idea. In a sense the tree here must first be the Tree of Knowledge with Christ becoming the snake of sin and death, in order for the father to raise him up and transform him into the Tree of Life.
Work by theologian James H. Cone, in his novel The Cross and the Lynching Tree is important to note, especially given the racist undertones of the “Indian” figure to the right of the image, and that this work is presumably from a missionary’s handbook for conversion of Latin America, heavily marked by the Transatlantic slave trade.
For the black and enslaved Christians, of Latin America and the United States, the vocabulary from cross to tree exemplified for them Christ’ joint suffering with them.” “The cross has been transformed into a harmless, none-offensive ornament [...] rather than reminding us of the cost of discipleship.” Perhaps understanding that the early church saw the image of a cross as a scandal, rather than contemporary readers who often wear it as pretty jewelry would open space to understand the full pain of Christ in the symbolic curse he “took on.”
6. Illuminated Initial- From Peter Lombard’s Commentary on the Psalms (c. 1166)
Christ transformed into a serpent on the cross is an uncommon artistic depiction. One place where the strangest of typological parings are made are found is within the pages of illuminated manuscripts, by the text illuminators in the scriptoriums of monasteries. These monks used the spaces of the illuminated initials to stretch the readers’ theological understanding in new ways.
The scene here contains all the figures of most iconographic crucifixion scenes. Mary the mother of Christ stands to the right, with John presumably to the left. The figures of Stephaton offering the vinegar-soaked sponge and Longinus piercing the side of Christ make up much of the space. But there are serpents everywhere. Below, the jeering crowd is wrapped in snakes, with a small, almost overlooked Moses -recognizable as set apart by the lack of racial stereotypes, such as the exaggerated noses and hats afforded to the rest of the mob.
This is a scene of the bronze serpent as much as one of the crucifixions, and more than the tiled image seen earlier, more snakes are in play here: The illuminated initial itself is an “S” shaped Seraphim or dragon coiled around the cross, colored bronze, acting as Moses’ bronze serpent. Below the feet of Christ, another serpent is coiled, fulfilling the prophesy that the serpent will bruise his heel but he will crush its head. How does he do this?
Because there is a fourth serpent in the scene: Christ. In his essay “the Serpents of Orthodoxy,” Pageau: “When considering these traditions, especially knowing they already participate in the iconography of the crucifixion, [...] if becomes difficult not to notice the “S” shape of Christ’s body and how it invokes serpent symbolism.” Head tilted to the right, with the body often contorting to the left invokes this shape throughout Christian art, whether deliberately or not.
7. Mystery of the Fall and Redemption of Man- Giovanni Da Modena, church of San Petronio, Bologna (1379-1455)
In Giovanni da Modena's Mystery of the Fall and Redemption of Man, Christ is finally depicted fully on the tree of knowledge, with the snake below his heel. It is the first image for us of the garden of Eden reimagined. The serpent bearing Eve’s face as a vision of the knowledge of Self with which she is tempted plays out fully. Theologian Alfred E. Knopf sees this image as a part of the popular “verdant or botanical cross.” Just as discussed earlier, the serpent of temptation is “cast down” in order to be raised up by the father. So too Knopf notes, the miraculous transformation of dead into living wood supplied one of the most prolific motifs of the Christian tradition. The image is not Christ on the triumphant tree of Life, but on the cursed tree of Knowledge of good and Evil.
This is not a scene of Christ triumphant over death but captures the moment before: when Christ is cast down, the moment of eve’s betrayal of God. Pageau points out that it is also not rare to find a snake on the lower tier of a cross-tree, and Christ on the top, both hanging on the same cross/tree of knowledge. Christ paired in the same visual vertical line with the serpent hints to Christ’s bearing of the serpent —becoming the serpent in order to be cast down in our stead.
But the image goes on to make the theological point that it is through the blood of this suffering that we are saved: Mary stands on the right of the image with a chalice in which the symbolic eucharistic blood of Christ side wound as a symbolic breast pours into. Pageau notes this is not unlike the common trope of the healing properties of snake venom taken from the reptile’s right side. The nourishing power of the church is the mystery of suffering- the foolishness of Christ.
8. Onnes (Chirst and the Serpent)- Odilon Redon (1907)
One must be clear that it is not that Christ is a serpent, but rather, that he becomes a serpent, as saint Gregory describes:
"The serpent may seem an incongruous symbol for this mystery and yet it is an image Truth himself does not repudiate [...] Holy Scripture calls the father of sin a serpent, so what is born of him must be a serpent too; sin must have the same name as its father. Now since the Apostle asserts that the Lord was made sin for our sake by clothing himself in our sinful nature, it cannot be inappropriate to apply this symbol to him. If sin is a serpent and the Lord became sin, it must be obvious to all that in becoming sin he became a serpent, which is simply another name for sin."
The Surrealist/symbolic painter Odilon Redon is one of the few artists to attempt to capture literally what this might be like. His haunting oil painting “Onnes” shows a Christ-faced serpent. The scene is red, and the snake is crawling on the ground. This image. While from the start of the 20th century, carries a very post-modern imagining of the scene, illuding to the curse of the serpent in the garden.
Artists in the contemporary scene are far more comfortable with capturing the complete and absolute state of Christ’s human condition, both in artistic rendering and even in music. For example, the contemporary metal band, My Epic, produced an entire album —Yet— heavily based on the relation between our human condition and the complete depravity into which Christ was cast in becoming human, perhaps never captured as clearly as in their song “Lower Still.” The lyrics of the song invoke what Redon captures impressionistically in this image. The lyrics describe the continual descent of Christ into the lowest aspects of the human experience, illuding to the curse of the tree and of the serpent:
Beat in His face, tear the skin off his back
Lower Still. Lower still.
Strip off his clothes, make him crawl through the streets.
Lower Still Lower Still.
Hang him like meat on a criminals tree.
Lower Still Lower Still.
The purpose of these depictions are to make the viewer’s stomach turn: it is humiliating. It is depravity. It is Perfection and the Creator lowering into the fullness of the human curse, bearing it and becoming it fully- becoming the serpent- in order to be then lifted up by the father:
The earth explodes, she cannot hold Him.
And all therein is placed beneath Him.
And death itself no longer reigns,
It cannot keep the ones He gave Himself to save.
And as the universe shatters, the darkness dissolves,
He alone will be honored,
we will bathe in His splendor as
All Heads Bow Lower Still!
9. The Woman of the Apocalypse and the Beast- Johfra Bosschart (1961)
The final scene of the serpent in the biblical account is found in Revelations, where all of the symbology of scripture transforms into its most intense form as seen in this painting by Johfra Bosschart. While most of his other work reflects his preoccupation with psychological Jungian symbology, the occult, Greek fertility cults, medieval fae myths, and the zodiac, paired with erotic and organic imagery, this image stands out among the rest of his collection as strictly and literally Christian.
He captures the scene described in revelations of the serpent in its final, most terrifying form: On the earth the dragon breeds with seven heads and ten horns. With its tail it sweeps a third of the stars from the sky. He rules the earth. The dragon’s wings are covered in eyes, echoing the many-eyed angels- given that as a third of them fall to join the dragon’s ranks. The eye as the symbol of sight- of knowledge, now fully surrounds the figure, and the serpent, once with a singular head now has seven: it is sin in its final and darkest imagining. In the revelations The dragon fights The archangel Michael. Michael’s name, “Who is like God?” is the challenge to the serpent, and the wisdom it first tempted Eve with: “you will be like god and know good from evil.”
Johfra however, has chosen to elevate the scene into a blinding moment of revelation: the dragon reaches towards the “Woman of the Apocalypse,” painted as she is described: Clothed in the sun, standing on the moon. She pays no attention to the dragon below, for it has already been defeated in the conquering of death.
Instead her gaze is fixed upward to a scene of the Diesis: the Virgin Mary to the right and John the Baptist to the left. She holds up an infant, placing him in extended arms.
Below her feet is one last, almost forgettable snake, absently crushed below her feet. The final scene of revelations appears as a vision of Christ’s assumption and triumph over death. The serpent is crushed though Christ’s becoming of it. This redeemed serpent is then raised up by the father, who calls his son to his right hand, and those who believe into a perfected knowledge of Christ to join his ranks singing Holy Holy Holy is the Lord.
For further reading (Bibliography):
Bansal, Sonali. “Axis Mundi: Understanding the Connection Between Heaven and Hell.” Fractal
Enlightenment, Accessed November 25, 2023. https://fractalenlightenment.com/35796/spirituality/axis-mundi-understanding-the-connection-between-heaven-hell
Facedown Records. “My Epic —Yet— Lower Still.” July 11, 2012. 5:49:00
James H. Cone. The Cross and the Lynching Tree. (2011: Maryknoll, New York).
Jonathan Pageau. “The Serpents of Orthodoxy,” Orthodox Arts Journal. April 18, 2013.
Jonathan Pageau. “Symbolism of the Tree.” January 25, 2018. 23:31.
Jonathan Pagaeu. “The Symbolic Meaning of a Snake Around a Rod,” Q and A. May 2019.
Mark Armitage. “Gregory of Nyssa (c 335 – after 394): The Life of Moses, 2.31-36 (SC 1bis:40-
41); from the Monastic Office of Vigils for Tuesday of the First Week in Lent, Year 2,” Enlarging of the Heart. Posted Mar 23, 2014. https://enlargingtheheart.wordpress.com/2014/03/23/gregory-of-nyssa-moses-and-the-serpent-in-the-desert/
Roland Barnes. “Cursed is Everyone Who is Hanged on a Tree,” Ligonier. December 15, 2021
Biblical References Throughout Presentation:
The Temptation of Eve; Curse of the Snake: Genesis 3:1-5, 14-15
The Rod of Moses Turned into a Serpent: Exodus 7:8-12
The Bronze Serpent in the Desert: Numbers 21:4-8
“Cursed is any man who hangs on a Tree”: Deuteronomy 21:21-23
Hezekiah Casts Down The Bronze Serpent: 2 Kings 18:2-4
The Suffering Servant Prophesy: Isaiah 53:2-5
The history of Satan and a Cherubim: Ezekiel 28:12-19
Jonah Swallowed by a Big Fish: Jonah 1:17-18
“Well Done, good and Faithful servant”: Matthew 25:21
Christ Sweating blood: Luke 22:41-44
The Son of Man compared to Moses’ bronze serpent: John: 3:13-18
The Foolishness of Christ/the Scandal of the Cross: 1 Corinthians 1:17-31
“Cursed is any man who hangs on a Tree” Explained: Galatians 3: 13-14
The Woman of the Apocalypse: Revelations 12:1-9; 13-19.
[1] 1 Corinthians 1:17-31 (NRSV)
[2] Mark Armitage. “Gregory of Nyssa (c 335 – after 394): The Life of Moses, 2.31-36 (SC 1bis:40-41); from the Monastic Office of Vigils for Tuesday of the First Week in Lent, Year 2,” Enlarging of the Heart. Posted Mar 23, 2014. https://enlargingtheheart.wordpress.com/2014/03/23/gregory-of-nyssa-moses-and-the-serpent-in-the-desert/
[3] Jonathan Pageau. “The Serpents of Orthodoxy,” Orthodox Arts Journal. April 18, 2013. https://orthodoxartsjournal.org/the-serpents-of-orthodoxy/
[4] Pageau, “The Serpents of Orthodoxy.”
[5] Pageau, Jonathan. “The Symbolic Meaning of a Snake Around a Rod,” Q and A. May 2019. 10:35. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1XZdM5pROE
[6] Bansal, Sonali. “Axis Mundi: Understanding the Connection Between Heaven and Hell.” Fractal Enlightenment, Accessed November 25, 2023. https://fractalenlightenment.com/35796/spirituality/axis-mundi-understanding-the-connection-between-heaven-hell
[7] Pageau. “The Symbolic Meaning of a Snake Around a Rod.”
[8] Ezekiel 28:12-19 (NRSV)
[9] Greg Wiebe, “Every Angel a Terror: Angelic Symbolism and Church Iconography,” Lecture November 21, 2023.
[10] Curse site"
[11] Mark Armitage. “Gregory of Nyssa: The Life of Moses.”
[12] Exodus 7:8-12; Numbers 21:4-8; Jonah 1:17-18 (NRSV).
[13] Pageau, “The Symbolic Meaning of a Snake Around a Rod.”
[14] Jonathan Pageau. “Symbolism of the Tree.” January 25, 2018. 23:31. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrfr2vUKyAM
[15] Pageau, “The Serpents of Orthodoxy.”
[16] Pageau, “The Symbolic Meaning of a Snake Around a Rod.”
[17] Isaiah 53:2-5; Archpriest George Benigsen. “Trampling Death By Death,” Radio Liberty, Easter 1988. https://www.holy-trinity.org/feasts/benigsen-trampling.html
[18] Mark Armitage. “Gregory of Nyssa: The Life of Moses.”
[19] Luke 22:41-44 (NRSV),
[20] Matthew 25:21 (NRSV).
links to featured art:
Further Reading: https://christian.art/daily-gospel-reading/john-3-14-21-2021/
Link to other Images: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jonah_thrown_into_the_Sea.jpg
Article cited: James H. Cone. The Cross and the Lynching Tree. (2011: Maryknoll, New York).
6. Link to image and further reading of racial stereotyping in Christian art: https://tenthmedieval.wordpress.com/2014/10/10/seminar-cxli-jews-in-western-art-before-during-and-after-the-1160s/
Further reading: https://orthodoxartsjournal.org/the-serpents-of-orthodoxy/
7. Link to Image and Further Reading: https://www.dhushara.com/book/consum/sch/tree.htm
Gregory of Nyssa Reading: https://enlargingtheheart.wordpress.com/2014/03/23/gregory-of-nyssa-moses-and-the-serpent-in-the-desert/
Link to Song and Lyrics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00aTXLdaZAk
Link for Further Reading: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1XZdM5pROE
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