[The Brazen Serpent]

Robert Anning Bell, RI AWRS 1872-1919

Photographic Reproduction of pen and ink drawing

1897

The Studio

Scan and text by George P. Landow

John 3:14, in which Christ proclaims "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wildemess, even so must the Son of man be lifted up," taught Christians to see the brazen serpent as a divinely authenticated type of the Crucifixion, but commentators also emphasize that it is an image of saving faith. Bell's illustration for The Altar Book depicts that passage from the Book of Numbers which relates that after the Lord sent a plague of serpents to punish the Jews for their lack of faith, Moses interceded with God and was instructed: "Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live" (Numbers 21:8). [Continued below]

Image scan and text by George P. Landow

[You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one. ]

According to the usual reading of this type, the brazen serpent in the wilderness, which God gave to the people when they repented of their lack of faith, teaches man that he can be saved only by faith in Christ crucified. Commentators like Thomas Scott emphasize that the brazen serpent is an image of saving faith precisely because the actions commanded by God were themselves so apparently unlikely to produce any beneficial result, and, similarly, without the eye of faith one would hardly think that salvation could conceivably come from gazing with belief at some person suffering painful execution. The commentators also remark that Moses set up the brass image upon a pole in the midst of the Israelite camp, like a standard. — Victorian Types, Victorian Shadows. [full text in the Victorian Web

Other Uses of the Brazen Serpent as a Type of Christ

• On the frame of Holman Hunt's The Shadow of Death
• In Holman Hunt's Melchizedek
• Carlyle uses it satirically in Hudson's Statue and The French Revolution
• George Hedgeland's Stained Glass in Jesus College, Oxford
• Gustave Doré's Bible Illustration

References

Landow, George P. Victorian Types, Victorian Shadows; Biblical Typology in Victorian Literature, Art, and Thought. Boston and London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980.

The Studio, [London] 9 (1897): 122.

---

Victorian
Web

Visual
Arts

Illustra-
tion

Robert
Anning Bell

Next

Last modified 18 January 2007