N-CH-SH – ‘eager covetousness; egoistic, anxious passion; function of the orgy’

This wretched interpretation appears to go back to the epoch of the captivity in Babylon and to coincide with the total loss of the Hebraic tongue…

The word, as it is employed, cannot mean a serpent. It is an eager covetousness, self-conceited, envious, egoistic, which indeed winds about in the heart of man and envelops it in its coils, but which has nothing to do with a serpent, other than a name sometimes given metaphorically….

Let us examine the word נחש with the attention it merits, in order to prove the meaning contained in its root, not only by means of all the analagous idioms which possess it, but also by its own hieroglyphic composition.

This root is חש, which as I have said in explaining the word חשך, darkness, indicates always an inner covetousness, a centralized fire, which acts with a violent movement and which seeks to distend itself…related to anxiety, agony, sorrow and painful passions. It is literally, a torrefaction; figuratively, an eager covetousness…a suffering, a grievous passion in the Syriac…a turbulent agitation in the Ethiopic. This root verbalized in the Hebraic הוש, depicts the action of being precipitated, of being carried with violence toward a thing…

The hieroglyphic analysis can perhaps give us the key to this mystery…two different roots, אר and אש, to designate equally the first principle, the elementary principle and the unknown principle of things…the Egyptian priests…

…attached to both, the idea of movement; but they considered as the symbol of movement proper, rectilinear; and as that or relative movement, circular. The hieroglyphic character which corresponded to these two movements was likewise a serpent, but a serpent sometimes straight and passing through the centre of a sphere, to represent the principle אר; sometimes coild upin itself and enveloping the circumference of this sphere, to represent the principle אש. When these same priests wished to indicated the union of the two movements or the two pirnciples, they depicted a serpent upright, uncoiling itself in a spiral line, or two serpents interlacing their mobile rings. It is from this last symbol that the famous caduceus of the Greeks has come.

The priests were silent as to the inner nature of both these principles; they used indifferently the radicals אר or אש to characterize the ethereal, igneous, aerial, aqueous, terreous or mineral principle; as if they had wished to make it understood that they did not believe these simple and homogenous things, but the composite ones. Nevertheless, among all these several significations, that which appeared the most frequently was that of fire. In this case they considered the igneous principle under its different relations, sentient or intelligible, good or evil, and modified the radical word which represented it, by means of the signs. Thus, for example, the primitive אר became אור to designate elementary fire, אור light, איר intelligible brightness, etc. If the initial vowel is hardened, it takes a character more and more vehement. הר represented an exaltation, literally as well as figuratively: חר, a burning centre, ער a passionate, disordered, blind ardour. The primitive was nearly the same.

The movement alone still distinguished the two principles, whether they were exalted or whether they were debased. The rectilinear movement inherent in the primitive אר, prevented the confusing of its derivatives with those of the primitive אש, in which the gyratory movement dominated. The two radicals חר and חש represented alike a central fire; but in the first חר, it was a central fire from which the igneous principle radiated with violence; whereas in the second חש, it was, on the contrary, a central fire from which this same principle being moved in a circular movement, was concentrated more and more and destroyed itself.

Such was the hieroglyphic meaning of this root which I have already examined under its idiomatic relations…Now the sign which governs it in the word נחש, is that of passive action, individual and corporeal; so that the devouring ardour expressed by the root חש, becomes by means of this sign, a passive ardour, cold in its vehemence, contained, astringent and compressive. Literally, it is every hard and refractory body; everything acrid, cutting and corroding; as copper, for example, which this word signifies in a very restricted sense; figuratively, it is every sentiment, painful, intense or savage, as envy, egoism, cupidty, it is in a word, vice.

…It can be clearly seen that it does not signify simply a serpent. Moses, who has spoken so much of the reptilian life, in the beginning of the Beraeshith, was careful not to emply it…(The Hebraic Tongue Restored, Fabré d’Olivet, p. 94-97)

The symbol of the ‘serpent’ involves the dual nature of the universe: between the centralizing forces and the radial or expansive forces, between those that seek to fix and form (curving or spherical forces) represented by אש (ash) and those that seek to radiate out (radial forces) represented by the Hebrew root אן (an). It is from this concept of a polarity of forces that we get the famous caduceus of the Greeks, a serpent upright, uncoiling itself in a spiral or two serpents interlacing themselves.

When the root אש, or ‘centripetal force,’ is hardened as in חש, it takes on a certain vehemence or force, a centralizing fire that consumes itself – an all-consuming passion. The sign that governs the root in the word נהש (Nahash) is that of receptive action, so that the devouring ardor expressed by the root CHSH חש, becomes cold and vehement, astringent and compressive. As d’Olivet states, “it is every sentiment, painful, intense or savage, as envy, egoism, cupidity.” (The Great Mystery: Understanding the Story of Adam and Eve, R. Verspoor, Amazon Kindle)