The Holy Rainbow Serpent

One of the most pressing issues in global Orthodox theology is the incorporation of the sensitivities and aspirations found in Indigenous worldviews all over the world. Tradition has to prove itself inclusive and comprehensive of the global human condition and this requires informed, as well as bold new theologies. In the following weeks, Dr Vassilis Adrahtas will be addressing this issue by exploring cardinal Indigenous concepts, beliefs and practices from Australia that have a much broader relevance and significance. 

The so-called Rainbow Serpent or Rainbow Snake has become one of the most iconic images of Indigenous Australia. Anthropologist Alfred Radcliffe-Brown was the first to put forward the existence of ‘the myth of the Rainbow Serpent’ and since his times the motif has captured the imagination of non-Indigenous and Indigenous people alike. A supreme deity, a benevolent creator, a fertility force, a ferocious destroyer – male, female, both or indeterminate – always in animal form, always associated with rain and water, the Rainbow Serpent occupies indeed a unique place in the Indigenous sacroscape (the sacred features of the landscape) of Australia; a kind of engulfing frame of reference, within which one can see and appreciate all other manifestations of the Land.  

Despite its name, the Rainbow Serpent is not always thought of or depicted as a serpent or snake, nor is it always associated or experienced as a rainbow. Thus, its reality is quite elusive, yet comprehensive and inclusive; it is more like an extraordinary presence that brings to life what is more-than-human in a given place, country or land. In this sense, it wouldn’t be far-fetched to say that it is truly ‘holy’ in its awe-inspiring capacity, or that it is indeed a ‘spirit’ in its ethereal qualities. ‘Holy’ here means tremendum et fascinans (terrifying and fascinating) – to recall the great scholar of religion Rudolf Otto – while ‘spirit’ has connotations of something intangible that nevertheless has a most tangible way of being.  

The Rainbow Serpent embodies experientially the connection between the earth and the sky via the channels of the transformation of water. In other words, it constitutes the totality of this or that Indigenous eco-system in all its complexity and dynamics; in all its visible and invisible traits, in all its everyday and exceptional hierophanics. Rain from above, waterholes down here and secret underground routes of water, all of them combine to make up the rhythm of a flow of life and death that serves the abidingness of existence. Indeed, the Rainbow Serpent comes and goes, appears and disappears, is present and absent, yet it is the constant power that makes a place what it is.    

An Uncreated Creation 

There is lots of talk about creation in contemporary Indigenous writings, discourse and storytelling, but this is not the creation we all are familiar with in Christianity; sometimes it resembles the latter, but it’s definitely something different. Simply because it has always been there! In this sense, Indigenous ‘creation’ is about a reality that is created as much as it is uncreated. It is being made, shaped and formed, yet it does not come out of nothing; it has a beginning, yet it has always been ‘in the beginning’. To call it an uncreated creation would be an oxymoron, but it is in this linguistic antinomy that one might capture the gist of its truth.  

I think that by talking about the uncreated creation as Indigenous peoples experience it, one can understand and appreciate better the nature and function of the Rainbow Serpent. If the created and the uncreated are thought of as sides of the same coin, as communicating vessels, so to speak, or as interconnected realities that transact with one another, then the Rainbow Serpent is precisely the connection between them or the condition of possibility for their transaction and communication. In other words, the Rainbow Spirit is the movement of a given place’s visibility from and to, or in and out of, its own invisibility; and this movement is experientially realised through and thanks to the movement of water in any given place. 

It seems that the Indigenous creative imagination has kept together two aspects of human self-consciousness that in Western cultural contexts have been juxtaposed or even contrasted. What has been termed wholistic awareness in the Indigenous case is basically a way of integrating dualities within a broader experience, whereas in the Western case dualities tend to crystalise into clear-cut distinctions and feed a dialectics of tension. What in the West will eventually be recognised as the ‘totally Other’ creator, on the one hand, and the ex nihilo made creation, on the other – sitting together of course, but quite distinctly – in Indigenous Australia seems to have been about different instantiations of one and the same experience.                 

The Indigenous Holy Spirit 

An Orthodox dialogic and by extension syncrasis (fusion) with the Indigenous Rainbow Serpent will have to confront two basic problems: firstly, the symbolic negativity associated with the snake and everything serpentine in Christianity, and secondly the need to decide whether this aspect of an Indigenous Orthodox theology will be worked out on the basis of Christology or Pneumatology (the doctrine of the Holy Spirit). I believe that the former problem is not insurmountable – at the end of the day, serpents are part of a ‘very good’ creation as much as any other creature – while with regards to the latter problem I would like to state very clearly that for a number of reasons it will have to be an issue of Pneumatology. In what follows I shall attempt to clarify the most important of these reasons. 

There is nothing intrinsically negative about snakes; otherwise, we would be subscribing to a vicious and nasty kind of Gnosticism. Thus, although the snake as a symbol has not been the best in the Christian tradition, it can be recharged and re-utilised from a positive and constructive perspective. But what one should be quite careful with is the aspect of theology per se they are going to associate the Rainbow Serpent with. Given the specific historicity of Jesus Christ and the fact that animals (e.g., the lamb) or plants (e.g., the vine) are used to represent Him only symbolically – that is, in the purely semiotic sense of the term – I find it not only difficult but also inappropriate to use the serpent/snake image in order to refer to Him. On the other, hand if we turn to the Holy Spirit, the theological field seems much more open to exploration.  

The Holy Spirit is the Divine Hypostasis that offers the plethora of Divine Energies to the whole of creation; it sustains, perpetuates and makes everything perfect. Hovering ‘in the beginning’, as the Genesis narrative says, over the waters and intrinsically related to the baptismal waters of rebirth and recreation, it is the best possible candidate to infuse the Indigenous Rainbow Serpent with an array of theological connotations: primordial and ongoing divine creativity, charismatic redemption through our caring relationality with the gifts of the earth, and a divine presence that is ‘everywhere present and fillest all things’. Besides, throughout the Orthodox theological tradition the activity of the Holy Spirit has consistently been experienced as the indisputable proof of God’s rainbow of peace with the entire human race.

ABOUT | INSIGHTS INTO GLOBAL ORTHODOXY with Dr Vassilis Adrahtas

"Insights into Global Orthodoxy" is a weekly column that features opinion articles that on the one hand capture the pulse of global Orthodoxy from the perspective of local sensitivities, needs and/or limitations, and on the other hand delve into the local pragmatics and significance of Orthodoxy in light of global trends and prerogatives.

Dr Vassilis Adrahtas holds a PhD in Studies in Religion (USyd) and a PhD in the Sociology of Religion (Panteion). He has taught at several universities in Australia and overseas. Since 2015 he has been teaching ancient Greek Religion and Myth at the University of New South Wales and Islamic Studies at Western Sydney University. He has published ten books. He has extensive experience in the print media as editor-in-chief, and columnist, and for a while he worked as a radio producer. He lives in Sydney, Australia, his birthplace.