Ophiolatreia - Serpent Worship

I’ve just finished reading 'The Worship of the Serpent' by John Bathurst Deane, published 1833. It's a book that traces the history of serpent worship throughout the world, with the basic premise being that serpent worship is a cultural memory of man's fall from paradise. The serpent worshipped being the very same one that tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden.

The book's quite esoteric and some of its passages are quite interesting - especially given that it was written nearly 180 years ago. I'll reproduce some of them here.

On Atlantis, page 26:

"In the Atlantis of Plato, we may, I think, discover the Eden of Scripture; and in the lapse of the Atlantians from virtue and The Divine Nature, the fall of Adam from purity and The Image Of God. The state of mankind, at the time of the deluge, is, doubtless, blended with the tradition; for we find that the island Atlantis was submerged in the ocean. But the want of authentic records of the period intermediate between the fall and the deluge, left the heathen, in a great measure, ignorant of antediluvian history."

And this description of God on page 56:

"The definition of the Deity by Trismegistus is poetically sublime: "God is a circle whose centre is everywhere, and circumference nowhere.""

Then on page 88, he mentions the Gnostics:

"Epiphanius says, that "the Ophites sprung out of the Nicolaitans and Gnostics, and were so called from the serpent which they worshipped." The Gnostics, he informs us in another place, "taught that the ruler of this world was of a dracontic form.""

Continuing on pages 90/91:

"These opinions of the Gnostic Ophites were blended with the old Magian superstition of Persia by Manes, a celebrated heretic of the third century; who revived ophiolatreia, in his native country, under the name of Christianity. He taught, that "Christ was an incarnation of the great serpent, who glided over the cradle of the Virgin Mary, when she was asleep, at the age of a year and a half.""

I wouldn't be surprised if David Icke had read this book.