The Worship of the Serpent

Hesiod:--"Dreadfully did the second race degenerate from the virtues of the first. They were men of violence; they had no pleasure in worshipping the immortal gods; they experienced no delight in offering up to them those sacrifices which duty required 1."

So clearly did the mind of Hesiod apprehend the real state of mankind, that, in his fable of Pandora, he seems but to paraphrase the story of Adam and Eve. Pandora was a female to whom every god and goddess imparted a virtue or an accomplishment: she was made from clay, to be the wife of the man Prometheus, whose nature and origin were of a more elevated caste. He was the son of Japetus, a demigod, who was the son of Cœlus--i.e. heaven defied. Prometheus is represented as irreverent towards the gods. Among other things, Pandora was presented with a beautiful casket by Jupiter, which she was to offer as a nuptial dowry to her husband; but ordered, at the same time, on no account to open it. Prometheus did not marry her, being suspicious of the design of Jupiter; but sent her to his brother, whose wife she became. Through inordinate curiosity, he opened the casket, and

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