nd of Kihua-Kohuatl and Tonakatl-Koatl in Mexico.

"The serpent remained in the memory and affections of most early people
as wisdom, life, goodness, and the source of knowledge and science,
under various names such as Toth, Hermes, Themis, the Kneph or Sophia of
Egyptians and Gnostics, and Set, Shet, or Shem of the Jews."(75)

75) Forlong, Rivers of Life, etc., vol. i., p. 143.

The Serpent Goddess, although embracing evil as well as good, was still
the "Giver of Life" and the "Teacher of Mankind." These were the titles
which in later ages began to be coveted by monarchs, and then it
was that the attributes belonging to this Deity began to appear in
connection with royalty.

There is no ancient divinity about which there seems to be connected
so much mystery as the Assyrian Hea. When referring to the "great
obscurity" which surrounds this God we are assured that there is at
present "no means of determining the precise meaning of the cuneiform
Hea, which is Babylonian rather than Assyrian," but that it is doubtless
connected with the Arabic Hya, which is said to mean "life," or the
female principle in creation. This Deity is the God of "glory" and
of "giving," titles which during the earlier ages of human existence
belonged to the Queen of Heaven, the Celestial Mother.

The representation of the god Amun or Amun-ra, which superseded the
triune Deity, Kneph, Sate, and Anouk at Thebes, and from which in
Assyria doubtless proceeded the trinity, Amun, Bel-Nimrod, and Hea, is
supposed to be identical with the Greek Zeus, which means the sun. This
God is represented by a female figure seated on a throne. It is crowned
with two long feathers, and in the right hand is observed the cross,
the emblem of life. Manetho, the celebrated Egyptian historian, declares
that the name of this God signifies "concealed."

There can be little doubt that the titles of the ancient Deity--the
Destroyer or Regenerator, or, in other words, those of the God of life
which embraced the idea of the moving force throughout Nature, were, in
course of time, appropriated by the rulers of the people. It is stated
that the name of a certain Egyptian God appears first in connection with
royalty, that "his name was substituted for some earlier divinity whose
hieroglyphics were chiselled out of the monuments to make place for
his."

According to the testimony of Rawlinson, the God Hea is represented
by the great serpent, which occupies a conspi