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Link to an image of this page  Link to an image of this page  [N7v p206]

La santé publique.

XLVI.

Esculape seant sur l’autel,[1] se fait voir
En forme de dragon, quoy qu’il soit Dieu benit:
Les Rommains le vont voir, & obtiennent en fin,
Que Romme il secourra, & fera tout devoir.

Link to an image of this page  Link to an image of this page  [N8r p207]

Dragon, right; men disembarking from ship, left.
[Click on image to enlarge]

Commentaires.

Valere le grand, Pline, S. Augustin, Lactance, &
autres, ont descrit au long ceste fable. Mais nous
nous arresterons au sens moral que Minos en tire.
Sous cest enveloppement de serpent n’est nulle autre
chose signifiee plus vraye & plus expresse, que no-
stre Seigneur Jesus Christ, le vray Esculape de nos
ames, & celuy qui apporte le vray salut au genre hu-
main, & qui avoit esté figuré par Moise le legisla-
teur au desert par un serpent eslevé, lequel guerissoit
toutes les maladies & infirmités des enfans d’Israel:
& lequel en fin en croix a payé & expie toutes les
fautes & pechés des eslus.

Notes:

1.  Aesculapius, son of Phoebus [Apollo] and god of medicine and healing. His main sanctuary and centre of healing was near Epidaurus in Greece. The god’s epiphany and symbol was a snake, and a number of sacred snakes were kept at the sanctuary. One of these was brought to Rome in 293 BC in hopes of stopping an outbreak of plague. The snake made its home on the Island in the Tiber, where a shrine and medical centre was subsequently built. See Ovid, Metamorphoses, 15.626ff.

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