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of Mount Libanus, who could not hide themselves among their native rocks (and thus fulfil the divine decree of being "left to prove" Israel), carried their religion into the islands of the Archipelago, into Thrace, into Macedonia, into Greece. Their subsequent history is to be found in the fables of mythology, in which the synchronous march of Cadmus to the Hellespont may indicate the retreat of a party of Kadmonites in that direction.
7. EGYPT. Ophiolatreia was never predominant
8. ABYSSINIA. More distinct traces of the state of serpent-worship were left in Æthiopia. On the borders of Abyssinia the serpent is still worshipped by the Shangalla Negroes; but the glory of its overthrow in the more civilized portions of the land of Habesh, is ascribed to nine missionaries of the Christian church of Alexandria.
9. WHIDAH. Equally circumstantial is the narrative of the suppression of Ophiolatreia in Whidah. The fatal blow was given in 1726, by the Dahomeys, who destroyed all the serpents which had been kept for religious purposes.
10. The worshippers of the serpent had as little rest in Europe. The unremitting hostility of the children of the sun is indelibly stamped upon the annals of Grecian fable. The contest of Apollo and Python for the temple of Delphi, was a struggle of the sun-worshippers, for an Ophite sanctuary. One remarkable feature, however, distinguishes the fable. The promise of Paradise finds a singular parallel in the history of Apollo 2: and this very circumstance throws a light upon the cause of the hostility against the serpent. It would appear by the
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fable that the Zabeans took possession of the Dracontium of Delphi, and substituted their own rites for those of the Ophites. But whether the country was still favourably disposed towards the old religion, or whether the usurpers desired to innovate gradually without too much violence to the prejudices of the votaries of the serpent, they preserved the general form and figure of the temple, together with some of its peculiar customs. The serpentine avenue was therefore only so far disturbed as to admit a central circular temple in honour of the SUN 1; the Pythoness still gave her oracles from the dracontic tripod; and live serpents were still kept in the subterranean recesses. A similar policy was observed by the triumphant children of the sun in other parts of Europe.
11. The idolatry of the serpent lost its integrity in THRACE, MACEDONIA, and EPIRUS, in a more peaceable manner. It gradually subsided into the mysteries of Dionusus. There is a mention of an attempt to unite it with the idolatry of the sun by a reformer whom history has agreed to call "Orpheus." The real meaning
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of this word is probably, "The oracle of OR." (Or-phi.) OR was the same as the ORUS of the Egyptians, and the UR of the Chaldees; and was a title of the sun taken from his attribute of light.
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