The Serpent and the Dragon: A Doctrinal Clarification

Theological Premise

Within the theological and symbolic tradition upheld by the Ordo Adamantis Atri, the figure of the Serpent is revered not merely as a totem or mythological figure, but as an archetype of mutability, transcendence, and gnosis—a living operator of metaphysical principles. Contrary to the distorted imagery proliferated during the Christian Middle Ages and reified in modern fantasy and pop-esotericism, the Serpent must be clearly distinguished from the creature now commonly termed the Dragon. This doctrinal clarification is not semantic—it is ontological.

I. A Question of Terminology and Origins

In the ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern worlds, the languages and symbols associated with serpentine beings are manifold, but they do not support a singular, consistent notion of the dragon as defined by post-medieval iconography. The Hebrew tannîn, the Greek drakōn or ophis, and the Latin serpens, cetus, and ketōs, refer to beings often aquatic or chthonic, serpentine rather than saurian. They express cosmic principles: chaos, transformation, danger, and wisdom—not fantasy beasts to be slain by heroes.

The modern image of the dragon—a winged, fire-breathing monster—is largely the product of Christian exegetical tradition, notably the apocalyptic imagery of Revelation 12, where “the great red dragon” (ho drakōn ho megas) is equated with Satan. Medieval bestiaries and theological texts extrapolated from this, creating a composite creature that absorbed Greco-Roman, Persian, and Northern European motifs (cf. Lecouteux, The Tradition of Household Spirits, 2013). The drakōn of Homer or Hesiod is not this later, monstrous being. As David Leeming notes, “the dragon is a mythological invention that arises when the ambivalence of the serpent is lost to binary cosmology” (The Oxford Companion to World Mythology, 2005).

II. Divine Archetypes: The Serpent in Antiquity

In pre-Christian mythologies, the Serpent is seldom evil. In Babylonian cosmology, Tiamat is not merely a chaotic force, but the matrix of existence—a primordial oceanic serpent representing potentiality and disorder as necessary antecedents of creation (cf. Dalley, Myths from Mesopotamia, 1989). In Egyptian religion, Apep opposes the solar order not as a moral adversary but as the antithesis required to sustain Ma’at. Even Set, demonized in later periods, originally symbolized transformation and liminality.

In Greek tradition, the figure of Typhon, though adversarial, is again not a monster in the moralistic sense, but a cosmic force challenging Olympian order—a symbolic representation of the chthonic energies repressed by the rising celestial pantheon (cf. Vernant, Myth and Thought among the Greeks, 1983).

In the Hebrew Bible, Leviathan (cf. Isaiah 27:1) is not a demon but a creature of Yahweh, part of a cosmological drama of containment and balance. Scholars like Michael Fishbane have shown that these beings often preserve elements of Near Eastern chaoskampf mythologies, where the serpent is a necessary component of cosmic dialectics (Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel, 1985).

III. The Ambiguity of the Serpent: The Symbolism of Pharmakon

The ambiguity of the Serpent is its power. It is both pharmakon—poison and cure, in the Platonic sense. This duality is at the heart of Gnostic and Samaelite interpretations. As Jacques Derrida noted, the pharmakon “is neither remedy nor poison, neither good nor evil, neither presence nor absence—it is the game of difference itself” (Dissemination, 1981). The Serpent’s symbolism is not moral but ontological.

The kundalinī serpent of Indian Tantrism, for instance, winds at the base of the spine, embodying latent spiritual energy. In the Asclepian tradition, the serpent is a healer, coiled around the staff, symbolizing rejuvenation and immortality (cf. Edelstein and Edelstein, Asclepius: A Collection and Interpretation of the Testimonies, 1945).

IV. The Error of the Dragon

The figure of the Dragon, as now construed, is a synthetic product of Christian eschatology and romantic nationalism. Its image is spectacular, theatrical, and dualistic. It lacks the nuanced cosmological roles that the Serpent performs in earlier theologies. As Jean Chevalier and Alain Gheerbrant explain in their Dictionary of Symbols (1996), while the Serpent is associated with esoteric knowledge, the Dragon, in its later form, represents a symbolic ossification—the transformation of symbol into dogma.

The anthropomorphization of the Dragon, with human emotions and motives, removes it from the field of sacred symbols and places it within mythopoetic psychology, where it serves narrative rather than theological purposes.

V. Why the Serpent?

The Serpent alone remains fundamentally aniconic—a symbol of what cannot be contained. It sheds its skin: a ritual act of rebirth. It crawls without limbs: a symbol of inherent sufficiency and flow. It strikes with silence: the power of unmediated action. In all cultures—be it the Mesoamerican Quetzalcóatl, the Nāga of Hindu-Buddhist lore, or the Ouroboros of Hermeticism—the Serpent represents cyclical time, inner gnosis, and spiritual ascent.

As Mircea Eliade wrote, “The serpent is a hierophany of mystery, of renewal, and of the eternal return” (Patterns in Comparative Religion, 1958). In this light, the Serpent is not merely a theological symbol—it is a spiritual modality, a living form of doctrine.

In Samaelism, the Serpent is the vector of the Apophatic Divine: that which is known only through negation, through silence, through the coiling motion of thought toward non-thought.

Conclusion

Thus, the Ordo Adamantis Atri reaffirms its doctrinal stance: we do not follow the Dragon. We follow the Serpent. Not because it is older, but because it is metaphysically exact. Not because it frightens, but because it illuminates. Through its sacred ambivalence, it reveals the nature of the Divine—not as a person, not as a story, but as a principle, a motion, a mystery that coils inward and outward eternally.

“The Serpent does not roar, nor does it fly. It moves beneath the surface, unnoticed. But wherever it passes, the world is never the same.”

Selected Bibliography

• Chevalier, J., & Gheerbrant, A. (1996). Dictionary of Symbols. Penguin.

• Dalley, S. (1989). Myths from Mesopotamia. Oxford University Press.

• Derrida, J. (1981). Dissemination. University of Chicago Press.

• Edelstein, E. J., & Edelstein, L. (1945). Asclepius: A Collection and Interpretation of the Testimonies. Johns Hopkins University Press.

• Eliade, M. (1958). Patterns in Comparative Religion. Sheed & Ward.

• Fishbane, M. (1985). Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel. Oxford University Press.

• Leeming, D. (2005). The Oxford Companion to World Mythology. Oxford University Press.

• Lecouteux, C. (2013). The Tradition of Household Spirits. Inner Traditions.

• Vernant, J.-P. (1983). Myth and Thought among the Greeks. Routledge.