"But look at what the universal laws decree. Suppose that you have devoted your mind to higher things. You would not then need a judge to give you some kind of prize. It is you yourself who have achieved this excellent state. And suppose you turn to the bad. You don't need someone else to say that this must be punished, because you have done this to yourself."

-- Boethius

“Enemy-occupied territory—-that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us to take part in a great campaign of sabotage.” - C. S. Lewis

>Buddhist legends relate that Buddha was given the true Buddhism by the king of the serpents (often seen as the cobra), and Buddhists also revere the regenerative powers the snake exhibits.

https://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/religion/other/general/snake-worship

"The Birth of a Star" by contemporary American symbolist artist Michael Divine. (c. 2010)