(5) Ten years later, when I was finishing this manuscript, a student of mine, Ms. Heidi Treml, wrote:

  • "During the journey from Egypt to Canaan the impatient Israelites accused God and Moses of leading them into the desert to die. As a consequence of this complaining, Yahweh sent venomous serpents among the Israelites. Those Israelites who were not bitten by the serpents repented and asked Moses to intervene with God. Yahweh instructed Moses to make a bronze [or fiery] serpent and to place it on top of a pole so that those who were bitten could behold it and live. Moses did as he was commanded and, whenever a snake bit someone, that person would look at the bronze statue and live (Numbers 21:5-10).... John the Evangelist has Jesus explaining to Nicodemus, ‘And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up; That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. (John 3:13-15).’"
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    Ms. Treml pointed out that the serpent has been widely regarded both as an agent of death (because of its venom) and as an agent of transformation and rebirth (because it could shed its skin). This intense ambivalence of feature makes it an apt representative of the "numinous" (following Rudolf Otto, whose ideas are described later in this manuscript). The numinous is able to invoke trembling and fear (mysterium tremendum) and powerful attraction and fascination (mysterium fascinans). Ms. Treml commented, further: "if a person could sustain the gaze of the serpent – which symbolized his greatest fear – he would be healed."

    Why was Christ assimilated to the serpent, in my painting and in the New Testament? (It must be understood that I knew nothing whatsoever of this relationship when I originally constructed the sketch.) It has something to do with his representation as judge in Revelations:

  • "I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.

    So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.

    Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:

    I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eye-salve, that thou mayest see." (Revelations 3:15-19).

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    The idea of the Savior necessarily implies the Judge – and a judge of the most implacable sort – because the Savior is a mythological representation of that which is ideal, and the ideal always stands in judgment over the actual. The archetypal image of the Savior, who represents perfection or completion, is therefore terrifying in precise proportion to personal distance from the ideal.

    Return to Preface.