Texts in Conversation
Philo interprets the bronze serpent as self-mastery, the opposite of the serpent of Eve, so that looking at it and living means seeing God. In John, Jesus similarly finds a unique interpretation of the lifted-up serpent, as crucifixion.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Philo Allegorical Interpretation 2:81
Classical
How, then, is a healing of their suffering brought about ? By the making of another serpent, opposite in kind to that of Eve, namely the principle of self-mastery. For self-mastery runs counter to pleasure, a variable virtue to a variable affection, and a virtue that defends itself against pleasure its foe. So then God bids Moses make the serpent that ‘expresses self-mastery, and says: ‘‘ Make for yourself a serpent and set it upon a standard” (ibid. 8). You notice that Moses makes this serpent for no one else, but for himself, for God’s bidding is ‘‘ Make it for yourself.” This is that you may know that self-mastery is not a possession of every man, but only of the man beloved of God. We must consider why Moses makes a brazen serpent, no direction having been given him as to material. Possibly these are the reasons. In the first place, matter is not an element in God’s gifts making them to be of this or that sort ; but the gifts of us mortals are always looked upon embodied in matter. A second reason: Moses loves excellences without bodily form, whereas our souls, being unable to get out of our bodies, crave for excellence in bodily shape. But the principle of self-mastery, being forcible and unyielding, is likened to the strong and firm substance of brass, perhaps also because, whereas the self-mastery found in the man beloved of God is most precious and like gold, that which is found in him who has absorbed wisdom by gradual progress holds the second place. Everyone, then, ‘‘ whom a serpent shall have bitten, when he looks on ’ it shall live ” (ibid.). This is quite true. For if the mind, when bitten by pleasure, the serpent of Eve, shall have succeeded in beholding in soul the beauty of self-mastery, the serpent of Moses, and through beholding this, beholds God Himself, he shall live ; only let him look and mark well.
Date: 20-50 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
John 3:14
New Testament
12 If I have told you people about earthly things and you don’t believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven—the Son of Man. 14 Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” 16 For this is the way God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.
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Notes and References
“... Probably more helpfully, some interpreters saw Moses’ serpent as a positive alternative to the hostile ones that had bitten the people, which had more in common with the serpent in Eden.297 (Egyptians used images of snakes as prophylactic magic against snake bites.)298 If this tradition is not ad hoc and might be known by John’s audience, he may play on positive connotations of Moses’ serpent. [...] 297Moses’ serpent symbolizes endurance or self-mastery, the others pleasure, in Philo Alleg. Interp. 2.79–81; Agriculture 97–98. Citing Alleg. Interp. 2.79–86, Argyle, “Philo,” 386, suggests that Philo thereby implicitly identifies the serpent with one of the four virtues contained in the Logos. ...”
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