Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism Part 10

I cannot help regarding the s.e.xual element as the key which opens almost every lock of symbolism, and however much we may dislike the idea that modern religionists have adopted emblems of an obscene wors.h.i.+p, we cannot deny the fact that it is so, and we may hope that with a knowledge of their impurity we shall cease to have a faith based upon a trinity and virgin--a lingam and a yoni. Some may cling still to such a doctrine, but to me it is simply horrible--blasphemous and heathenish.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 184]

Figures 164, 165, represent a pagan and Christian cross and trinity. The first is copied from B. P. Knight (plate x., fig. 1), and represents a figure found on an ancient coin of Apollonia. The second may be seen in any of our churches to-day.

Figure 166 is from an old papal book lent to me by Mr. Newton, _Missale Romanum_, ill.u.s.trated by a monk (Venice, 1509). It represents a confessor of the Roman church, who wears the _crux ansata_, the Egyptian symbol of life, the emblem of the four creators, in the place of the usual _pallium_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 185]

It is remarkable that a Christian church should have adopted so many pagan symbols as Rome has done. Figure 167 is copied from a small bronze figure in the Mayer collection in the Free Museum, Liverpool.

It represents the feminine creator holding a well marked lingam in her hand, and is this emblematic of the four, or the trinity and the virgin.

Figure 168 represents two Egyptian deities in wors.h.i.+p before an emblem of the male, which closely resembles an Irish round tower.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 186]

Figure 169 represents the modern _pallium_ worn by Roman priests. It represents the ancient sistrum of Isis, and the yoni of the Hindoos. It is symbolic of the celestial virgin, and the unit in the creative four. When donned by a Christian priest, he resembles the pagan male wors.h.i.+ppers, who wore a female dress when they ministered before the altar or shrine of a G.o.ddess. Possibly the Hebrew ephod was of this form and nature.

Figure 170 is a copy of an ancient _pallium_, worn by papal ecclesiastics three or four centuries ago.. It is the old Egyptian symbol described above. Its common name is _crux ansata_, or the cross with a handle.

Figure 171 is the albe worn by Roman and other ecclesiastics when officiating at ma.s.s, etc. It is simply a copy of the chemise ordinarily worn by women as an under garment.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 187]

Figure 172 represents the _chamble_ worn by papal hierarchs. It is copied from Pugin's _Glossary_, etc. Its form is that of the _vesica piscis_, one of the most common emblems of the yoni. It is adorned by the triad. When worn by the priest, he forms the male element, and with the chasuble completes the sacred four. When wors.h.i.+pping the ancient G.o.ddesses, whom Mary has displaced, the officiating ministers clothed themselves in feminine attire. Hence the use of the chemise, etc.

Even the tonsured head, adopted from the priests of the Egyptian Isis, represents "l' anneau;" so that on head, shoulders, breast and body, we may see on Christian priests the relics of the wors.h.i.+p of Venus, and the adoration of woman! How horrible all this would sound if, instead of using veiled language, we had employed vulgar words. The idea of a man adorning himself, when ministering before G.o.d and the people, with the effigies of those parts which nature as well as civilisation teaches us to conceal, would be simply disgusting, but when all is said to be mysterious and connected with hidden signification, almost everybody tolerates and many eulogise or admire it!

[Ill.u.s.tration: 188]

APPENDIX: THE a.s.sYRIAN "GROVE" AND OTHER EMBLEMS

By John Newton, M.R.C.S.

The study of sacred symbols is as yet in its infancy. It has. .h.i.therto been almost ignored by sacerdotal historians; and thus a rich mine of knowledge on the most interesting of all subjects--the history of the Religious Idea in man--remains comparatively unexplored. The topic has a two-fold interest, for it equally applies to the present and the past.

As nothing on earth is more conservative than religion, we have still a world of symbolism existing amongst us which is far older than our sects and books, our creeds and articles, a relic of a forgotten, pre-historic past. Untold ages before writing was invented, it is believed that men attempted to express their ideas in visible forms. Yet how can a savage, who is unable to count his fingers up to five, and has no idea of abstract number, apart from things, whose habits and thoughts are of the earth, earthy, form a conception of the high and holy One who inhabiteth eternity? Even under the highest forms of ancient civilisation, abundant proofs exist that the imagination of men, brooding over the idea of the Unseen and the Infinite, were bounded by the things which were presented in their daily experience, and which most moved their pa.s.sions, hopes and fears. Through these, then, they attempted to embody such religious ideas as they felt. They could not teach others without visible symbols to a.s.sist their conceptions; and emblems were rather crutches for the halting than wings to help the healthy to soar. Mankind in all ages has clung to the visible and tangible. The people care little for the abstract and unseen. The Israelites preferred a calf of gold to the invisible Jehovah; and sensuous forms of wors.h.i.+p still fascinate the mult.i.tude.

Whilst studying a collection of symbols, gathered from many climes and ages, such as this volume presents, I feel sure that every intelligent student will have asked himself more than once--Is there not some key which unlocks these enigmas, some grand idea which runs through them all, connecting them like a string of beads? I believe that there is, and that it is not far to seek. What do men desire and long for most?

_Life_. "Skin for skin; all that a man hath will he give for his life,"

is a saying as true now as in the days of Job. "Give me back my youth, and I will give you all I possess," was said by the aged Voltaire to his physician. And our poet laureate has sung,

'Tis Life, whereof our nerves are scant, O life, not death, for which we pant; More life, and fuller, that I want.

But we must add, as necessarily contained in the idea of Life in its highest sense, _those things which make Life desirable_.

This fulness of life has been the _summum bonum_, the highest good, which mankind has sighed for in every age and clime. For this the alchemists toiled, not to advance chemistry, but to discover the Elixir of Life and the Philosopher's Stone. But what nature refused to science, the G.o.ds, it was believed, would surely give to the pious! and the glorious prize referred to has been promised by every religion. "I am come that they might have Life, and that they might have it more abundantly." Life is the reward which has been promised under every system, including that of the founder of Christianity. A Tree of Life stood in the midst of that Paradise which is described in the book of Genesis; and when the first human couple disobeyed their Maker's command, they were punished by being cut off from the perennial fount of vitality, lest they should eat its fruit and thus live for ever; and in a second Paradise, which is promised to the blessed by the author of the book of Revelation, a tree of life shall stand once more "for the healing of the nations." To the good man is promised, in the Hebrew Scriptures, long life, prosperity, and a numerous offspring. "Thy youth is renewed like the eagle's."* Ps. ciii. 5.

In the wondrous theology of Ancient Egypt, which at length is open to us, the "Ritual of the Dead" celebrates the mystical reconstruction of the body of the deceased, whose parts are to be reunited, as those of Osiris were by Isis; the trials are recorded through which the deceased pa.s.ses, and by which all remaining stains of corruption are wiped away; and the record ends when the defunct is born again glorious, like that Sun which typified the Egyptian resurrection.**

* St. Paul points oat (Eph. vi. 2) that to only one of the ten commandments is a promise added. And what is the promise? "That thy days may be long." (Exod. xx. 12.) See also Psalm cx.x.xiii. 3, "the blessing, even life for evermore."

** Apuleius, who had been initiated into the mysteries of Isis, informs us that long life was the reward promised to her votaries. (Metam. cap. xi.)

In the ancient mythology of India, it is recounted that of old the G.o.ds in council united together to procure, by one supreme effort, the Amrita cup of immortality, which, after the success of their scheme, they partake of with their wors.h.i.+ppers. Even for the Buddhist, his cold, atheistical creed promises a Nirvana, an escape from the horrors of metempsychosis, a haven of eternal calm, where "there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are pa.s.sed away;" "there the weary be at rest."

Rev. xxi. 4, Job iii. 17.

This idea of tranquillity is in striking contrast to the heaven promised by the religion of the north of Europe, which was the one most congenial to a people whose delight was in conquest and battle. Those who had led a life of heroism, or perished bravely in fight, ascended to Valhalla; and the eternal manhood which awaited them there was to be pa.s.sed in scenes that were rapture to the imagination of a Dane or a Saxon. Every day in that abode of bliss was to be spent in furious conflict, in the struggle of armies and the cleaving of s.h.i.+elds; but at evening the conflict was to cease; every wound to be suddenly healed. Then the contending warriors were to sit down to a banquet, where, attended by lovely maidens, they could feast on the exhaustless flesh of the boar Saehrimnir, and drink huge draughts of mead from the skulls of those enemies who had not attained to the glories of Valhalla.

The paradise promised to the faithful by Mahomet is full of sensuous delights. The Arabian prophet dwells with rapture on its gardens and palaces, its rivers and bowers. Seventy-two houris, or black-eyed girls, rejoicing in beauty and ever-blooming youth, will be created for the use of the meanest believer; a moment of pleasure will be prolonged to a thousand years, and his powers will be increased a hundred-fold to render him worthy of his felicity.

Thus we see that in all these great historical faiths the prize held out to the true believer has this in common, viz., _Life, overflowing, ever-renewed, with the addition of those things which make life desirable for men_; whether they are sensuous pleasures, or those which, under the loftier ideal of Christianity, are summed up in _Life, both temporal and eternal, in the light of G.o.d_.

Such being the case, we might antic.i.p.ate that the symbols of every religion would reproduce, in some shape or other, the ideal which is common to all. The earliest and rudest faiths were content with gross and simple emblems of life. In the later and more refined forms of wors.h.i.+p, the ruder types were highly conventionalised, and replaced by a more intricate and less obvious symbolism.

We proceed now to investigate the more primitive emblems. The origin of life is, even to us, with all our lights, as great a mystery as it was to the ancients. To the primitive races of mankind the formation of a new being appeared to be a constant miracle, and men very naturally used as tokens of life, and even wors.h.i.+pped, those objects or organs by which the miracle appeared to be wrought. Thus, the glorious sun, that "G.o.d of this world," the source of life and light to our earth, was early adored, and an effigy thereof used as a symbol. Mankind watched with rapture its rays gain strength daily in the Spring, until the golden glories of Midsummer had arrived, when the earth was bathed during the longest days in his beams, which ripened the fruits that his returning course had started into life. When the sun once more began its course downwards to the Winter solstice, his votaries sorrowed, for he seemed to sicken and grow paler at the advent of December, when his rays scarcely reached the earth, and all nature, benumbed and cold, sunk into a death-like sleep. Hence feasts and fasts were inst.i.tuted to mark the commencement of the various phases of the solar year, which have continued from the earliest known period, under various names, to our own times.

The daily disappearance and the subsequent rise of the sun, appeared to many of the ancients as a true resurrection; thus, while the east came to be regarded as the source of light and warmth, happiness and glory, the west was a.s.sociated with darkness and chill, decay and death. This led to the common custom of burying the dead so as to face the east when they rose again, and of building temples and shrines with an opening towards the east. To effect this, Vitruvius, two thousand years ago, gave precise rules, which are still followed by Christian architects.

Sun-wors.h.i.+p was spread all over the ancient world. It mingled with other faiths and a.s.sumed many forms.* Of the elements, fire was naturally chosen as its earthly symbol. A sacred fire, at first miraculously kindled, and subsequently kept up by the sedulous care of priests or priestesses, formed an important part of the religions of Judea, Babylonia, Persia, Greece and Rome, and the superst.i.tion lingers amongst us still.

* We may point out that, according to all the Gospels, Christ expired towards sunset, and the sun became eclipsed as he was dying. He rose again exactly at daybreak.

So late as the advent of the Reformation, a sacred fire was kept ever burning on a shrine at Kildare, in Ireland, and attended by virgins of high rank, called "_inghean au dagha_," or daughters of fire. Every year is the ceremony repeated at Jerusalem of the miraculous kindling of the Holy Fire at the reputed sepulchre, and men and women crowd to light tapers at the sacred flame, which they pa.s.s through with a naked body.

Indeed, solar myths form no unimportant part of ancient mythology. Thus the death of nature in the winter time, through the withdrawal of the sun, was supposed to be caused by the mourning of the earth-G.o.ddess over the sickness and disappearance into the realms of darkness of her husband and mate, the sun.

Mr. Fox Talbot has lately given the translation of an Egyptian poem, more than three thousand years old, and having for its subject the descent of Ishtar into Hades. To this region of darkness and death the G.o.ddess goes in search of her beloved Osiris, or Tammuz. This Ishtar is identical with the a.s.syrian female in the celestial quartette, the later Phoenician Astarte, "The Queen of Heaven with crescent horns,"

the moon-G.o.ddess, also with the Greek Aphrodite and Roman Venus; and the Egyptian legend reappears in the west as the mourning of Venus for the loss of Adonis.

Again, the fable of Ceres mourning the death of her daughter Proserpine is another sun-myth. The Roman Ceres was the Greek [----------], Mother Earth, who through the winter time wanders inconsolable. Persephone, her daughter, is the vegetable world, whose seeds or roots lie concealed underground in the darkness of winter. These, when Spring comes with its brightness, bud forth and dwell in the realms of light during a part of the year, and provide ample nourishment for men and animals with their fruits. The sun, being the active fructifying cause in nature, was generally regarded as male. Thus, in the Jewish scriptures, he is compared to "a bridegroom coming out of his chamber" (Ps. xix. 5), i.e., as a man full of generative, procreative vigour. The moon and the earth, being receptive were naturally regarded as female.

At the vernal equinox, the ancients celebrated the bridal of the sun and the earth. Yet, inasmuch as the orbs of heaven and the face of nature remain the same from year to year, and perpetually renew light and life, themselves remaining fresh in vigour and unharmed by age, the ancients conceived the bride and mate of the sun-G.o.d as continuing ever virgin.

Again, as the ancient month was always reckoned by the interval between one new moon and the next,--an interval which also marks a certain recurring event in women, that ceases at once on the occurrence of pregnancy,--the lunar crescent became a symbol of virginity, and as such adorns the brow of the Greek Artemis and Roman Diana. This was used as a talisman at a very remote period, and was fixed over the doors of the early lake-dwellers in Switzerland, like the horse-shoe is to modern side-posts. With the sun and moon were often a.s.sociated the five visible planets, forming a sacred seven,--a figure which is continually cropping up in religious emblems.

So much for the great cosmic symbols of Life. But the primitive races of mankind found others nearer home, and still more suggestive--the generative parts in the two s.e.xes, by the union of which all animated life, and mankind, the most interesting of all to human beings, appeared to be created. This reverence for, or wors.h.i.+p of, the organs of generation, has been traced to a very early period in the history of the human race. In a bone-cave recently excavated near Venice, and beneath its ten feet of stalagmite, were found bones of animals, flint implements, a bone needle, and a phallus in baked clay. And if we turn to those savage tribes who still reproduce for us the prehistoric past, this form of religions symbolism meets as everywhere. In Dahomey, beyond the Ashantees, it is, according to Captain Barton, most uncomfortably prominent. In every street of their settlements are priapic figures.

The "Tree of Life" is anointed with palm oil, which drips into a pot or shard placed below it, and the would-be mother of children prays before the image that the great G.o.d Legba would make her fertile.

Burton tells us that he peeped into an Egba temple or lodge, and found it a building with three courts, of which the innermost was a sort of holy of holies. Its doors had carvings on them of a leopard, a fish, a serpent, and a land tortoise. The first two of these are female symbols, the two latter emblems of the male. There were also two rude figures representing their G.o.d Obatala, the deity of life, who is wors.h.i.+pped under two forms, a male and a female. Opposite to these was the male symbol or phallus, conjoined _in coitu_ with the female emblem. Du Chaillu met with some tribes in Africa who adore the female only. His guide, he informs us, carried a hideous little image of wood with him, and at every meal he would take the little fetish out of his pocket, and pour a libation over its _feet_ before he would drink himself.

We know that a similar superst.i.tion prevailed in Ireland long after the advent of Christianity. There a female, pointing to her symbol, was placed over the portal of many a church as a protector from evil spirits; and the elaborate though rude manner in which these figures were sculptured shows that they were considered as objects of great importance. It was the universal practice among the Arabs of Northern Africa to stick up over the door of their house or tent the genital parts of a cow, mare, or female camel, as a talisman to avert the influence of the evil eye. The figure of this organ being less definite than that of the male, it has a.s.sumed in symbolism very various forms.

The commonest subst.i.tution for the part itself has been a horse-shoe, which is to this day fastened over many of the doors of stables and s.h.i.+ppons in the country, and was formerly supposed to protect the cattle from witchcraft. From a lively story by Beroalde de Verville, we learn that in France a sight of the female organ was believed, as late as the sixteenth century, to be a powerful charm in curing any disease in, and for prolonging the life of, the fortunate beholder.

As civilisation advanced, the gross symbols of creative power were cast aside, and priestly ingenuity was taxed to the utmost in inventing a crowd of less obvious emblems, which should represent the ancient ideas in a decorous manner. The old belief was retained, but in a mysterious or sublimated form. As symbols of the male, or active element in creation, the sun, light, fire, a torch, the phallus or linga, an erect serpent, a tall straight tree, especially the palm and the fir or pine, were adopted. Equally useful for symbolism were a tall upright stone (menhir), a cone, a pyramid, a thumb or finger pointed straight, a mast, a rod, a trident, a narrow bottle or amphora, a bow, an arrow, a lance, a horse, a bull, a lion, and many other animals conspicuous for masculine power. As symbols of the female, the pa.s.sive though fruitful element in creation, the crescent moon, the earth, darkness, water, and its emblem a triangle with the apex downwards, "the yoni," a shallow vessel or cup for pouring fluid into (_cratera_), a ring or oval, a lozenge, any narrow cleft, either natural or artificial, an arch or doorway, were employed. In the same category of symbols came a s.h.i.+p or boat, the female date-palm bearing fruit, a cow with her calf by her side, the fish, fruits having many seeds, such as the pomegranate, a sh.e.l.l (_concha_), a cavern, a garden, a fountain, a bower, a rose, a fig, and other things of suggestive form, etc.

These two great cla.s.ses of conventional symbols were often represented _in conjunction with_ each other, and thus symbolised in the highest degree the great source of life, ever originating, ever renewed. The Egyptian temple at Denderah has lately been explored by M. Mariette. In a niche of the Holy of Holies he discovered the sacred secret. This was simply a golden sistrum (see _ante_, pp. 44 and 70), an emblem formed by uniting the female oval O with the male sacred Tau T; and thus identical in meaning with the coa.r.s.e emblem seen by Captain Burton in the African idol temple. A similar emblem is the linga standing in the centre of a yoni, the adoration of which is to this day characteristic of the leading dogma of Hindu religion. There is scarcely a temple in India which has not its lingam; and in numerous instances this symbol is the only form under which the great G.o.d Siva is wors.h.i.+pped. (See _ante_, pp.