Indiana Jones can’t stand snakes. He suffers from the most common of the phobias – ophidiophobia. So do most of us. Of so I am told. Perhaps this has something to do with the news that snakes got their comeuppance in the Garden of Eden. Life has never been the same for them since. Snakes have a bad name – they hide in the grass, they use poison as a weapon. Of course, other animals do these reprehensible things. Tigers wear stripes as a camouflage. Eagles stoop on their prey out of the blue. Octopuses squirt poison at their enemies. But snakes behave in these ways in our prized heaths and woodlands – though in Ireland, they say, thanks to St Patrick, their writ does not run. And, surprise, surprise, it was once thought that it was possible to regain one’s youth by eating snakes.
Harry ‘Brusher’ Mills died in 1905. He made a living out of catching snakes and keeping zoos and other customers supplied with them. He captured 30,000 of them while he was in the New Forest. The zoos fed the snakes to other snakes. There is, I understand, a pub named The Snake Catcher in Brockenhurst as a memorial to a colourful character.
What the Vicar of Brockenhurst, Simon Newham, thinks of the local snakes I cannot imagine. But I know from his 44-page magazine that the decision of his PCC to join the ECO church movement and the re-start of a postponed Alpha course suggest that he is a busy man.
In isolated spots in the Appalachian mountains in north America snakes have a place in Christian worship. Snake handling is regarded as evidence of true faith. George West Hensley was a leader in this practice. He died of a snake-bite.
Where does all this come from, you may ask? The answer is to be found in the last chapter of St Mark’s Gospel, where snake handling is mentioned along with exorcism (casting out demons) as one of the marks authenticating Christian belief.
We find an interesting follow-up to this in Acts. When Paul found himself shipwrecked and welcomed with uncommon kindness on Malta, he was putting a bundle of sticks on a campfire when a viper fastened on his hand. The islanders jumped to the conclusion that he was a murderer who had escaped the sea – but divine justice would not let him live. When Paul shook off the snake and seemed unperturbed, they watched him and said instead: ‘He is a god.’ Nothing changes quicker than people’s minds.
The moral of which is: don’t try this at home. But for the most part we have decided that whatever significance snakes may have had in the beginnings of the Christian faith, they do not have the same significance today. We may continue nursing our phobia.
If you have a comment on this post please send an email to Revd John King at johnc.king@talktalk.net Edited extracts may be published. To forward this to a friend click on the chain icon below.
Comments