Origen, on Wis 16:7

“For he that turned to it, was not healed by that which he saw, but by thee the Saviour of all.”

“In the meantime, the priestly Levitical order must show the way to the people of God—who are leaving Egypt! It is they, in fact, who teach the people to flee Egypt, which is to say from the errors of the world, and to pass through the immense desert, that is, to pass through various kinds of temptations without being harmed by the serpents, which are the bites of demons, and to avoid the poison of perverse counsel. And if it happens that someone is bitten by a serpent in the desert, they also show him the bronze serpent hanging on the cross. The one who sees it, who believes, that is, in him whom the serpent symbolized, by this very fact will escape the devil's poison.”

Imported from an open dataset — not yet checked against the printed edition.