Brazen Serpent of Moses

The history of the brazen serpent shows how even a legitimate symbol, retained beyond its time and after it has done its work, may become the object of idolatry.

The brazen serpent seems to have been an object of worship, from an indefinite period to the reign of Hezekiah.

The religious zeal of that king led him to destroy it (see 2 Kings xviii. 4). "He removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan."

The Church of St. Ambrose, at Milan, has boasted for centuries of possessing the brazen serpent which Moses set up in the wilderness.

The earlier history of the relic, so called, is a matter of conjecture.