ACCORDING to the Scriptural allegory, a serpent, a strange talking serpent, appeared to Eve in the Garden of Eden. Mary Baker Eddy in part defines "serpent" in the Glossary to "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 594) as "the first audible claim that God was not omnipotent and that there was another power, named evil, which was as real and eternal as God, good."
The graphic account of Moses' handling of a serpent, as told in Exodus, stirs the imagination of students of the Bible. Understood through material interpretation, this lesson brings admiration for the physical courage he displayed. Viewed metaphysically, it -is a marvelous lesson in the overcoming of error's claims to reality and power. Though he at first fled from so doing, Moses' obedience to God's command that he handle the serpent brought blessing; for through his dependence upon God, divine Mind, he saw the serpent become a rod. Not only did Moses thus prove for himself man's God-given dominion, but, later on, he demonstrated to the Israelites that all those who looked upon the brazen serpent, seeing it as utterly devoid of intelligence, power, reality, would be healed of evil and its claim of death-penalty.
Christ Jesus said, as Luke records in the tenth chapter of his Gospel, "Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you." He understood that, whatever form it assumed, evil had no power, since God, good, is omnipotent.
