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SSAYS ON SYMBOLISM, “
|BY
§ H. C. BARLOW, M.D., F.G.S.,
AUTH R OF “CRITICAL, HISTORICAL, AND PHILOSOPHICAL contRIBUTIONs to
THE STUDY of THE DIVINA comment A,”
ETC, ETC. ETC.
L O N DO N :
WILLIAMS AND NORGATE,
14, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN ;
AND 20, SOUTH FREDERICK STREET, EDINBURGH.
1866.

vi PREFACE.
gether, furnish and explain, in an ascending order,
the most recondite Symbolism with which we are
acquainted.
LIFE is the first and most important of these, and
would seem also to be the most ancient source of
Symbolism; first, as universal life; and, secondly, as
specific or special life, the life of animals and plants.
The former, considered in reference to the seaſual
system of nature, will explain the otherwise mys-
terious symbols of the equilateral triangle, the lingam-
goni, and the crual-anSata, from which is derived the
tau, and the cross, the present received symbol of
eternal life, and one of the most ancient.
The equilateral triangle is the general symbol
of trinities in unity, so prevalent in theological
systems. The Hebrew theology, however, was an
exception to this, though, in later times, when it
was no longer permitted to put the tetragrammaton,
or the sacred name of four letters for Jehovah,
three jods, disposed in the form of an equilateral
triangle, came to be used instead, thus combining
PHEFACE. vii
the male unit with the female dual, the unity of
power with the duality of production, God and
Nature, and expressing by their union the essence
of being, form, and structure.
In drawing, one mark, or line, is nothing, neither
will two suffice to produce form; but with three,
be it three ſods or three dots, we get something
for the eye to figure—there is a triangle. So also
in colour, three primary colours are required, and
these produce all the tints in nature. In archi.
tecture, three stones—two uprights, and a cross-
piece over—or the tri-lithic system, is the primary
element of construction, as at Stonehenge; and,
carried out with due proportion and elegance, as
two piers or columns, with an architrave above, is
what classical edifices of architectural character may
generally be resolved into. In Gothic architecture
this is not so, there we have the triangular form,
of which the Pyramids of Egypt afford the earliest
and most enduring examples, and are, as it will
be shown, symbolical of the belief of the Egyptians
viii PREFACE.
in the resurrection of the dead, the chief corner
stone of the Christian fabric.
That three should represent the symbolical root,
so to speak, of Nature and Art, may, perhaps, be
a corollary from Mr. Hay’s “Harmonic Law of
Nature,” whence, in his theory, “Triangulation,”
or the triple ratio, as applied to buildings, follows
as a matter of course.
Special life, as in animals and plants, furnishes
much of the specific symbolism used by the Egyp-
tians, Persians, Greeks, and other nations down to
the modern days of Christianity. The lion, the
eagle, the ox, the peacock, the dove; the palm
tree, the hom, the lotus or water lily, the ivy,
etc., will be found to play pretty much the same
symbolical parts now as they did formerly, but with
different associations.
From LIGHT is derived the Symbolism furnished
by the Sun, the Moon, the Stars, etc., applied origi-
nally to temporal rulers, and, in later times, to
Saints, and holy persons.
PREFACE. ix
In the Christian Architecture of our Middle-
Age Cathedrals we have a Symbolism carried out
of LIFE and LIGHT, significant of the spiritual
doctrine taught in them. Rising up heavenward
with their spires and pinnacles, and pointed arches,
having the Cross, the symbol of life, for their plan,
and a flood of light pouring in through their clere-
story windows, with the triple ratio peeping out
everywhere, even to the most minute details, and
the equilateral triangle regulating and governing
the whole, these marvellous monuments of the
piety and constructive skill of our forefathers, the
permanent records of their faith, hope, and charity,
convey to us, as did the Pyramids to the descendants
of the ancient Egyptians, the evidence of a con-
viction instinctive in the soul. -
LIFE and LIGHT lead also, by an ascending scale
of devout contemplation, to the most lofty specu-
lations of the Christian Faith, as revealed, through
Beatrice, to the mind of Dante, in the consumma-
tion of his beatific vision.
X FREFACE.
The second Essay in this little volume, “The
Art History of the Tree of Life,” will show how
intimately our Christian doctrine of a spiritual
and everlasting Life is linked with that held by
the ancient Egyptians, in the significance given
to the Tree which is the symbolical support of it.
In the third Essay, on “Sacred Trees,” it will
be seen that neither the dogmas of Christianity,
nor its doctrinal observances, are peculiar to it, but
occur in other formal religious systems, and per-
tain to ideal conceptions, and their symbolical
manifestations, more or less prevalent among man-
kind generally, a subject which will be further
illustrated in the concluding remarks on “Symbolical
Correspondences.”
NEWINGTON BUTTs, SURREY,
July, 1866.
SYMBOLISM IN REFERENCE TO ART.
;
SYMBOLISM IN REFERENCE TO ART.
I.—HISTORY OF SYMBOLISM.
The earliest architecture with which we are ac-
quainted is that of tombs and temples; and the
earliest sculptures and paintings are found associated
with them.
Thus art, taking its origin from a sacred source,
and having an especial reference to sacred things,
partook of their representative character, and became
essentially symbolical.
Symbolical representations of things sacred were
coéval with religion itself as a system of doctrine
appealing to sense, and have accompanied its trans-
mission to ourselves from the earliest known period
of monumental history. x-
Egyptian tombs and stēles exhibit religious sym-
bols still in use among Christians. Similar forms,
with corresponding meanings, though under different
names, are found among the Indians; and are seen
on the monuments of the Assyrians, the Etruscans,
and the Greeks.
2 SYMBOLISM IN REFERENCE TO ART.
The Hebrews borrowed much of their early re-
ligious symbolism from the Egyptians, their later
from the Babylonians, and through them this sym-
bolical imagery, both verbal and objective, has de-
scended to ourselves. ..
The Egyptian priests were great proficients in
symbolism, and so were the Chaldeans, and so were
Moses and the Prophets, and the Jewish doctors
generally,–and so were many of the early fathers
of the Church, especially the Greek fathers.
Philo, of Alexandria, was very learned in sym-
bolism, and the Evangelist St. John has made much
use of it.
The early Christian architects, sculptors, and
painters drank deep of symbolical lore, and repro-
duced it in their works. *
Their successors, Niccola Pisano, and his scholars;
Giotto, the painter, and his pupils; artists in Italy
and in Germany; the Van Eycks, Albert Durer and
his followers, and the great masters of the Italian
schools, down to the time of Raphael and Titian
inclusive, were all, more or less, influenced by sym-
bolism and its principles.
There are certain associations of ideas, and con-
ceived correspondences between things intellectual,
or pertaining to the inner life, the life of the soul,
and objective existences in nature, of which man-
kind have in all ages perceived the relation, and felt
EIISTORY OF SYMBOLISM. 3
the analogy. This, in fact, is the origin of SYM-
BoLISM, and in this is the secret of its agreement
among nations.
All primitive language is figurative, and more
or less symbolical; and so were the earliest written
characters. All ancient religious writings, including
the Bible, relate sacred things symbolically; and
mythologies may be thus explained.
All sacred mysteries and rites were symbolical,
and had a meaning, taught to the initiated only,
which it was held infamous to divulge. In modern
times, masonry has its minor mysteries and its multi-
tude of symbols, and its secrets are carefully confined
to the craft; nor is Christianity entirely without
them. But symbolism is not limited to the expres-
sion, by natural or other forms, of the same essential
ideas common to most, if not to all, ancient religions,
and indicative in them of one and the same origin;
it enters fundamentally into the very principles
which should regulate the practice of art, and
especially of architecture, bringing into one har-
monious whole its forms, proportions, dimensions,
and decorations.
It is not merely that certain natural objects, as the
sun, the moon, luminous ether, fire, etc.; certain
- animals, as the lion, the ox, the eagle, the peacock,
the dove, etc.; certain trees and plants, as the palm
tree, the oak, the sycamore tree, the hom, the lotus,
4 SYMBOLISM IN REFERENCE TO ART.
and the lily, play pretty much the same parts in all
religious systems, in virtue of that established rela-
tion between mind and matter, or the soul and
nature, which never changes; nor that in dogmatic
theology certain conventional figures are put to
signify certain specific things, and thus come to
influence architecture and her sister arts; but that
the very designs of sacred edifices, their forms,
arrangements, and ornamentation,--all have their
origin in a significant symbolism, and were conceived
and carried out in accordance with it.
Thus, besides the use of symbols in art for the
expression of a specific meaning, either natural or
conventional, there is the application of symbolical
principles; and there is also a third sort of sym-
bolism of a more general and aesthetic character,
which appeals to our sensibility and to our under-
standing, and takes a wider range than either of the
former, a symbolism as universal as reason, and
that is conversant with higher aspirations of human
nature than verbal doctrines and dogmas.
The noblest efforts of the Greeks, both in archi-
tecture and in sculpture, are in this latter sense
symbolical, though no special recondite meaning be
conveyed by signs and marks. -
The Greeks, who spiritualised art, transforming
its elements or primitive forms, which they borrowed
from Egypt and Assyria, into new creations, and in-
FHISTORY OF SYM BOLISM, 5
fusing into whatever they touched their own subtle
and refined intelligence, produced, in their buildings
and in their sculpture, outward and symbolical ex-
pressions of an inward and divine beauty. They
sought in their temples to set forth their intimate
convictions of the required canons of architectural
form and proportion, so as to produce grandeur,
dignity, gracefulness, beauty, and harmony, accord-
ing to the purposes required, -qualities of which all
their best examples partake in a certain degree, with
especial illustrations of one or more of them.
The proportions of the Greek orders and their
general symbolical aesthetic characters may, I think,
have been suggested by consideration of that most
perfect of all well-proportioned forms, the human
figure, which is also the most admirable example of
constructive skill with which our great teacher
Nature has furnished us. Thus, we may recog-
nise in the Doric order the symbolism of manly
dignity and strength; in the Ionic, that of maiden
grace and modesty; and in the Corinthian, that of
matured matronly beauty and regal grandeur. The
introduction of caryatides in Ionic architecture shows
that the association of the female figure was con-
sidered in character with the columns.
In their sculpture the Greeks exhibited still more
evidently the symbolical principle on which they
wrought. They sought to impress on their sculp-
6 SYMBOLISM IN REFERENCE TO ART.
tured figures an ideal character and form more than
human. They did not, like the Egyptians, adopt
symbolical animals to express their meaning; but,
with a full conviction of the dignity of human
nature, and of its relation to the divine, they sought
to set forth what they felt after the most perfect
pattern.
The art of the Greeks was the offspring of a
highly-cultivated intelligence, which saw the divi-
nity that is in nature in everything around, and felt
its influence working in themselves. In this respect
the Greeks were an inspired people, and their works
declare it. The grand, the beautiful, and the true, are
words of deep import in art. The Greeks were the
first to show what these words mean.
II, MEANING OF SYMBOLS AND SYMBOLISM.
Emblems, symbols, types, all have this in common ;
they are the representatives of something else for
which they stand. Emblems and symbols often differ
only in their mode of application; thus the palm-
branch is an emblem of Victory, but, taken in a
Christian sense, it is a symbol, significant of the
victory of our faith, and is given to all Christian
martyrs who have thus overcome death. The anchor
may be a mere emblem of Hope, but when it is put
MEANING OF SYMBOLS AND SYMBOLISM. 7
for the hope of a Christian it becomes a symbol. So,
also, the equilateral triangle may be nothing more
than the emblem of three united in one ; but, as
significant of the doctrine of the Trinity, it is a
symbol of the highest order.
A symbol is of the highest order when it expresses
a religious dogma or philosophical doctrine, but of
the lowest when it is put for a received fact, either
real or legendary. Thus the anchor, as a symbol of
St. Clement, is of the lowest order; and so are all
those particular symbols of Saints by which they are
distinguished from one another : as the sword of St.
Paul, the keys of St. Peter, the knife of St. Bartho-
lomew, the tower of St. Barbara, etc.
Types are different both from emblems and sym-
bols, and have a sort of antecedent parallelism to the
objects for which they stand. Thus, Moses is re-
garded as the type of Christ ; the manna which fell
in the wilderness as the type of the true bread of life
that came down from heaven; the water from the
rock in the wilderness, as typical of the water of life
flowing from Christ, the living fountain ; and so of
other types. -
The earliest Christian sculptors and painters were
very partial to the employment of types, but their
successors seem to have preferred symbols.
It is difficult, in a few words, to give an adequate
definition of the meaning of the word symbolism that
8 SYMBOLISM IN REFERENCE TO ART.
shall comprise the use of symbols, symbolical treat-
ment, and the application of symbolical principles in
design; perhaps it may be called an outward expres-
sion in art of an inward sense, meaning, and purpose."
Many of the subjects of Christian art, as the
Nativity, the Baptism, the Miracles, the Crucifixion,
would appear to have been, originally, more or less
symbolical; they next became conventional, and,
lastly, pictorial, in the ordinary sense of the word,
* Selections from a series of original drawings, made by the author
many years previously, of various urns, or sarcophagi, in the Campo
Santo, at Pisa, and in other localities, both in Italy and in France, and
intended, along with early architraves, and fonts, and other remains,
to illustrate the history of Christian sculpture up to the time of Niccola
Pisano, were shown at this lecture, and their symbols explained.
Among these may be here mentioned the very interesting Romano-
Cristiano urn in the Campo Santo, at Pisa, No. xxxiii., in Rosini's
Descrizione, p. 206, and more fully described by Professor Ciampi; and
the Byzantine urn of John the Baptist, in the Cathedral of Genoa.
The first is about seven feet in length, and three feet four inches in
height; and is supposed to be of the fourth century. It has two rows
of subjects. In the centre of the upper row is a circle enclosing the
busts of a male and female, in Roman costume, with the Israelites
gathering quails on the right hand, and the overthrow of Pharoah in
the Red Sea on the left. Beneath is Daniel between the Lions, the
Sacrifice of Abraham, and Moses striking the rock in the Wilderness.
The second is of Greek marble. The face exposed to view is about
three feet long, and one foot six inches high, with a roof-shaped lid,
somewhat wider, and about one foot two inches high. In the centre
of this is the Head of Jove, within an equilateral triangle between two
winged lions, or rather the remains of them, for the urn has suffered
much hard usage, and the greater part of one is broken off. The
urn has a quatre-foil opening in the centre, on the right of which
is a relievo of the Baptism of the Saviour by John, in Jordan. On the
left the dancing of Herodias at the banquet of Herod, and the damsel
presenting the head of John to her mother. The style is more
Byzantine, or Alexandrian, than Italian, and it is believed to be of the
eleventh century. This very interesting work is at the back of the
altar in the Chapel of the Baptist. There is a story current that it
. contained his ashes, and it is by many believed to contain them
still. *
MEANING OF SYMBOLS AND SYMBOLISM. 9
losing almost entirely their religious character. This
was especially the case with the most frequent re-
presentation in religious life, the Virgin and Child,
—which, at first, was a symbol, introduced after
the condemnation of the Nestorians at the Council of
Ephesus, 431, as an evidence of holding the orthodox
faith. (See “Legends of the Madonna,” p. 22). The
dogma of the Mother of God was of Egyptian origin;
it was brought in, along with the worship of the
Madonna, by Cyril and his monks of Alexandria, in
the fifth century. The earliest representations of the
Madonna and Child have quite a Greco-Egyptian
character, and there can be little doubt that Isis'
nursing Horus was the origin of them all. The
Chinese also recognise this old pagan notion in T'ien-
how, the Queen of Heaven, nursing her infant Son,
who is usually represented holding a lotus-bud as the
symbol of the new birth. There is a very interesting
porcelain model of such a group in the Ethnological
Museum at Copenhagen. The pictures of the Ma-
donna and Child, commonly called Byzantine, I have
long thought would be more correctly named Alear-
i Isis usually bears on her head a throne, which is the hieroglyphic
of her name. Her symbolical head-dress is a disc, with the two horns
of a cow. She is then, however, apt to be confounded with Hathor,
the Egyptian Venus. On some very ancient monuments, according to
M. Rougè, her symbol is a cow, the cow was an ancient symbol of the
Earth, as the mother of all things. Nepthis, who, with her sister,
recovered the body of Osiris from Seth, the evil principle, and restored
him to life, bears on her head the hieroglyphic of her name, a house,
or rather the door of one, surmounted by a basket.
10 SYMBOLISM IN REFERENCE TO ART.
andrine. At Alexandria there was an established
school for their production from an early period. The
very colour of the flesh in these holy pictures is
sufficient to establish their maternity: the Madonna,
if not “comely,” is at least nearly “black.”
III.—FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF
SYMBOLISM.
A complete history of religious symbolism should
embrace all the religions of antiquity no less than the
Christian, and it would require as thorough a know-
ledge of their tenets as of our own, to explain satis-
factorily its influence in regulating the practice of art.
The broadest basis on which to raise a super-
structure of religious symbolism in art, not peculiarly
Christian, will be found, I think, in the universally
received doctrines of LIFE and LIGHT.
That mysterious agent, the vivifying power of
nature, the vital energy in man and in all living
things, has in some systems been regarded as the
divine productive power, or principle itself, and
having received deification, became the object of
religious worship.
We have an evidence of this in the ancient religion
of India, and in the veneration of the mystical sym-
bols, the Lingam and Yomi,_a worship which would
FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF SYMBOLISM. 11
appear to have made the tour of the globe, and to
have left traces of its existence where we might least
expect to find any.
The sexual principle which rules the animal king-
dom, and was long suspected to rule the vegetable
kingdom also, before the fact was shown, and had
even been extended to the stars, in Milton’s words,-
“Communicating male and female light,
Which two great sexes animate the world.”
This principle came to be symbolically set forth as the
foundation of a religious creed; but in a conventional
way that divested it of any indecency.
One form, and that the most prevalent, by which
the sexual origin of all things was indicated, was
the equilateral triangle. M. Guigniaut, in his “Re-
’ a translation, with additions,
from Creuzer’s “Symbolik,” has the following passage
from the popular myths of the Hindus:–“Sur la
montagne d'or, Cailasa, habite le dieu Siva. Lå est
une plateforme sur laguelle se trouve une table carrée
p Q.
ligions of Antiquity,’
enrichée de neuf pierres précieuses, et au milieu le
lotus, ou Padma, portant dans son sein le triangle,
origine et source de toutes choses. De ce triangle
sort le Lingam, Dieu áternal, quien fait son éternelle
demeure.”
In the Hindu mythology, Siva is described as “the
father and master of nature, everywhere distributing
12 SYMBOLISM IN REFERENCE TO ART.
life under thousands of varied forms which he re-
novates incessantly.”
In the Hindu Trimurti, or Trinity, consisting of
Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, the latter is the recog-
mised deity, or principle, of reproduction from dis-
solution, one of whose forms, or symbols, was fire,
and who has been represented by it.
In India, all conical rocks are regarded with
veneration as lingam symbols of Siva, and caves and
caverns are considered to be significant of the yoni, or
the womb of nature, out of which all things were
produced.
Obelisks were lingam signals; pyramids, which
consisted of four equilateral triangles inclined to each
other, and meeting in an apex, combined the lingam
with the yoni. The former was the vivifying prin-
ciple, the latter the producing principle. They were
symbolised by a short, straight line, surmounted in
the centre by another straight line at right angles to
it, like a L square; also by a boat-shaped symbol
with a mast, in which the boat was put for the world,
the mast for the vivifying power, making it pro-
ductive: this became the mystical boat of Isis, which
Bryant and his followers mistook for the ark of
Noah. A third form is a triple mount. Amulets
of these shapes are still worn, it is said, by the
Sivaites.
The T square symbol, with a handle attached to
FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF SYMBOLISM. 13
, it, became the cruac-ansata, the symbol of eternal life
among the Egyptians.
The lingam-yoni symbol of life, reversed, becomes
the famous tau, or cross, which was the symbol of
life among the Greeks, as G) was of death, being the
initial letter of 64vatos (death)."
The earliest form in which this letter tau occurs is
that of a cross, and such was the meaning of tau in
our ancient customs. In the primitive Hebrew,
Numidian, and Greek alphabets, it was represented
both as a diagonal and as a rectangular cross. In
the later Greek alphabet it was the rectangular
lingam-yoni symbol reversed (T).
The tau, or cross, is believed to have been the
mark which the children of Israel made on the door-
posts of their houses, by order of Moses, that, in the
destruction of the first-born of the land of Egypt, the
angel of death might see it, and pass over them.” It
is also supposed to be the mark of salvation, spoken
of by the Prophet Ezekiel (ch. ix. 4), to be set on
the foreheads of the men who were not to be slain.
We often see this symbol on Etruscan ornamental
borders; there are several such in the museum of the
Vatican, occurring as the tau and as the lingam-yoni,
that is, alternately upright and reversed.
* See Stephens and others. Wisconti, Mus. Pio. Clem., vol. ii. p. 37.
2 Compare Ezekiel ix.4, 6, with Exodus xii. 7, 13. See Didron and
other authorities. Of the wonderful influence of the cross, as a sign of
power, and its exercise, see Burandus, Didron, etc.
14 SYMBOLISM IN REFERENCE TO ART.
As all the objects in this Etruscan museum were
taken from tombs, it is probable that this also had a
Sacred meaning.
Sir Gardner Wilkinson has remarked that he
cannot precisely determine the origin of the tau, or
cruac-ansata, among the Egyptians. But its deri-
vation from the more simple lingam-yoni symbol
seems a very natural process. The Coptic Christians
still use it for the Cross of Christ."
The crescent moon was also supposed to symbolize
the female principle; the sun the male. Something
of this doctrine may occasionally be seen in Christian
churches. In Santa Sabina, at Rome, over the
arches of the nave, and frequently repeated in green
and red porphyry, or their imitation, is a symbol
which may be explained on this supposition. There
is the sun in the embraces of the crescent moon,
and a little cross is stuck over them, perhaps to
sanctify their union, and they are placed on a stem,
which rests on the triple mount, sometimes called
the mont; chigiani, because a similar device, sur-
mounted by a star, constituted the stemma, or arms
of Alexander VII., of the Chigi family.
Kircher, in his “Prodromus Coptus sive AEgypti-
acus,” p. 246, has some learned remarks on this
subject, to show that the union of the sun and moon
* Considered merely as the key of the Nile, it has an equivalent
symbolical meaning in reference to that river as the source of life,
FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF SYMBOLISM, 15
had reference to Osiris and Isis; and the German
Ewald, in his “Emblemata Sacra,” vol. i., p. 40, has
a dissertation to the effect that the moon was a sym-
bol of the church. If this were so, we can understand
the meaning of the sun being embraced by it, although
the crescent moon would rather suggest the boat of
St. Peter, itself symbolical of the Church, and used
in this sense both by poets and painters. Thus Dante
causes St. Peter to exclaim,
“O navicella mia com’ mal se’ carca ’’—Purg. xxxii. 129.
But this very suspicious-looking symbol, so full of
profound pagan meaning, would, after all, seem to
be a very innocent thing, and merely meant to signify
the Virgin Mary, among whose many symbols were
those of the sun and moon, according to the mystical
sense of the 9th verse of the 6th Canticle:—“ Quae
est ista, que progreditur quasi aurora consurgens,
pulchra ut luna, electa ut Sol 3’” (“Who is she that
looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear
as the sun ?”). At least this is the most Christian
sense in which the symbol can be received. The
sun-crowned figures of the Virgin Mary are, how-
ever, mostly taken from the woman seen by St. John
in Heaven “clothed with the sun, and the moon
under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve
stars.” (Rev. xii. 1.) Such Petrarca has described
the Virgin Queen of Heaven in his exquisite hymn—
“Vergine bella che di sol vestita,” etc.
16 SYMBOLISM IN REFERENCE TO ART.
A triple mount, supporting a cross, would be
significant of Calvary.
The Buddhists of India and China had a cross of
this sort in use among them, most probably from the
earliest known epoch of their religion. .
The remarkable conformity between the rel
institutions and forms of the Buddhists in China and
those of the Roman Catholic Church, has often been
noticed. A recent writer (“Journal Asiatique,” 5th
series, tome viii., August 1856), remarks that it would
seem as if the latter had served as a model to the
former ; but this can hardly be so, for Buddhism
existed in India previously to the Christian era, and
it is not probable, admitting the existence of Christian
missionaries in China during the third or fourth
century, that the Buddhists then for the first time
copied their institutions and usages.
The Kelts, who were a more ancient people than
the Greeks, were also well acquainted with the use
and meaning of the cross. Our Druids were ac-
customed, in their religious usages, as is well known,
to construct a cross from the noblest oak they could
find, and over the top of it to write the word Thau,
for the supreme God, which was the sound of the
Greek Tau, in the Hebrew alphabet, whence it was
derived. This word Thaw was precisely the same
in sound as the Scandinavian Thor, the mighty one,
the Jupiter Tonans of the northern mythology, who
Iglous
SYMBOLS AMONG THE CHINESE AND INDIANs. 17
with Odin (Mars), and Balder (Apollo), constituted
the Scandinavian Trinity, as Thau, Haesus, and
Belinus, corresponding deities, did that of the ancient
Britons. x *
There can be no doubt that our Drudical circles
had a symbolical meaning, and were in accordance
with Oriental usages of very early times. Their
tri-lithic details were also in all probability sym-
bolical, and are suggestive of the Tau, two uprights
supporting a cross-piece over, which was the most
simple constructive form in stone. •
IV, SYMBOILS AMONG THE CHINESE AND
INDIANS.
Among the Chinese, that wise and peace-loving
people, the barbarians, so called, of the nineteenth
century, who have contrived to preserve their an-
tiquity and their institutions from the pre-historic
period to the present, or from the days of Noah, by
some regarded as the founder of their empire, to our
own, the sexual system of Nature, if it did not take
its origin, was at least adopted from the most remote
time. The celestial principle was male, the terrestrial
female; they were called the Yáng and the Yin,
the active and the passive. The heaven was ydng,
and the earth yin ; the Sun yáng, and the moon yin :
2
18 SYMBOLISM IN REFERENCE TO ART.
and, independent of these principles, nothing was
believed to exist. Numbers also had their genders:
one, and every odd number, was masculine; two, and
every even number, feminine.
But we must not suppose that the Chinese, though
they may, symbolically, have worshipped the Host of
Heaven, believing the stars to be material deities
radiating male and female light, did not, like other
nations, in process of time, arrive at the abstract
notion of an intelligence higher than the visible
heavens, and greater than any power that might be
lodged in the stars. The transition, in fact, was
marked by the name which they gave to this Being,
as “Shang-têen, ‘Supreme Heaven,” or one higher
than the sky; hwang-teen, “august heaven;’ te ‘God;’
and Shang-te ‘Supreme God.’” (See “Morrison's
Chinese Dictionary,” Chrs. 100,095 and 9,992).
After this came the religion of the Taou-tsze, or the
sect of Reason, whose principles M. Klaproth refers
to the earliest historical traditions of the Chinese.
Taou, in the early Chinese language, signified in-
telligence and the Supreme Reason. It does so still,
though it also corresponds with the Aoyos, or Word.
The Buddhists in China were originally called the
Taou-jin," which corresponded with the meaning of
'The word jin means “man,” “people.”. Possibly we may trace the
word in the Ginn of the Arabs, an intermediate class of beings between
angels and men, who correspond with “the little people,” or “fairies”
of our Saxon forefathers.
SYMBOLISM AMONG THE CHINESE AND INDIANs. 19
Buddha, enlightened, learned, from the verb Buddh,
to know. (See an article on Buddhism in the
“Revue des Deux Mondes,” March 1, 1860.) The
Buddhists were the reformers, or rationalists, and
worshipped the intellectual light. w .
In India the Buddhists had also been the reformers,
and for a considerable time their religion prevailed
over that of the Brahmins, until they were expelled
by the latter, and took refuge in China and Ceylon.
It has, however, been the opinion of many who have
given much attention to this subject, that certain
notions, if not institutions, similar to those of the
Buddhists, existed in India anterior to Brahminism.
The correspondence in form and arrangement be-
tween the Buddhist cavern temples, the Chaitya caves,
and our early Christian churches, has been a frequent
subject of remark; and what is still more remarkable
is the evidence that these excavations are in imitation
of structural edifices of which no traces have hitherto
been found. I think this is in favour of the high
antiquity of Buddhist principles. The earliest of
these caves, according to our best European autho-
rity, are those at Bahar, the Lomas Rishi cave, and
the Sat Gurbha cave.
They consist of a body or nave, connected with a
head, or sanctuary, by a neck or passage, and have
a singular resemblance to the plan of a French
church, said to be at Blanc, and dedicated to S.
20 SYMBOLISM IN REFERENCE TO ART.
Genitor (see the fifth volume of the Ecclesiologist,
in a paper on “Lychnoscopes, or Vulne Windows”).
Mr. Fergusson considers these caves in the syenitic
granite of Bahar as the germs of what are found so
fully developed at Ajunta and Ellora.
I would suggest that their forms and situation
have reference to that very early Oriental doctrine
of regeneration which, like the lingam, has gone the
round of the globe.
Over the daghopa (or shrine) in the Buddhist
temple caves is placed a structure called the Tee.
It received the umbrella of state, symbolical of the
royal presence, and analogous to the royal canopy,
the baldachino, in some metropolitan Catholic churches.
Possibly the name given to it may be explained by
the Chinese word TE, signifying a sovereign lord or
ruler, or one who judges the world.
W.—EGYPTLAN SYMBOTISM.
Two thousand years before the birth of Christ,
Osiris was universally worshipped in Egypt as the
saviour of souls (Rougè)"; he was also regarded as
* Osiris was the local god of Abydos in the early times; he is
scarcely mentioned on the more ancient tombs of Memphis. The most
flourishing period of the city of Abydos appears to have been in the
twelfth dynasty (M. Rougè); and it was, perhaps, at this epoch that
the culte of Osiris extended itself over the whole of Egypt. Lepsius
places the beginning of the twelfth dynasty at 2330 years B.C. Bunsen
places it somewhat earlier.
EGYPTIAN SYMBOLISM. 21
the incarnation of the goodness of the Deity, and as
the giver of life. Osiris corresponded to Siva in the
Indian theology, and one of his symbols was the
equilateral triangle (see Paterson in “Asiatic Re-
searches,” vol. iii.): the same was a symbol of Siva
(Ibid). Isis, the sister and wife of Osiris, corres-
ponded to Parvati, the sister and wife of Siva.
Parvati, like Isis, was the universal mother, the
goddess of a thousand names, veiling herself in every
living form.
In Egypt, the resurrection from the dead, or the
resuscitation of the body, was an established article
of faith, and, it would appear, always had been : the
ritual of the dead, the monuments, and paintings on
tombs, and designs on sarcophagi, show this: there
is collateral Biblical evidence, taken in conjunction
with other matters, which may prove it to have been
so, and we have the assertion of St. Augustine that
it was so. The statement will be found in his 361st
sermon, on “The Resurrection of the Dead.” The
words “Egyptii soli credunt resurrectionem,” etc.,
are quoted in vol. iii., “Dei Riti Funebri,” by Ros-
sellini, who was of opinion that the extraordinary
care taken by the Egyptians of the bodies of the
dead had reference to this received dogma. The
Pyramids of Egypt, which were, as their forms indi-
cate, Osiridian monuments, as well as tombs, were,
I think, intended to attest the firm belief in this
22 SYMBOLISM IN REFERENCE TO ART.
fact, and to transmit its memorial to the latest pos-
terity.
Possibly the moderns have not been able to com-
prehend the meaning of these monuments, from not
having considered them from an Egyptian point of
view. - .
It has been remarked that it is singular the
Hebrews, in their sacred books, take no notice of
these erections. But the Hebrew books make no
mention either of the resurrection from the dead:
it is only in the book of Job, an Arab in all proba-
bility, that there is any reference to this; and it
is there so fully and perfectly expressed, that even
among ourselves we could not enunciate it with more
sincerity and certainty: it looks like some stupend-
ous fact that has come down to us from a much
earlier revelation than any which we now possess;
it stands out from the Hebrew Scriptures as the un-
expected attestation of an immense truth, the greatest
of all truths; nor could it have received a more
appropriate and durable memorial than that of the
great Pyramids on the plain of Memphis.
The religion of the Hindus was, in all probability,
originally a nature worship, and nothing more.
The Indian Trinity was simply a personification
of the three great operations of Nature manifested in
creating, preserving, and transforming.
The Chinese had a similar formula; but in the
EGYPTIAN SYMBOLISM. 23
Chinese language, as in many others, words have a
double meaning—material and intellectual, physical
and metaphysical; and what the people received in
one way—like the gente grossa of all countries—the
learned understood in another. But the Egyptians
were more advanced in religion, and recognized a
Saviour in Osiris, who was the type of the regene-
rated soul, and of the resuscitated body, through
whom and in whose name every Egyptian hoped to
obtain a blessed immortality in heaven.
The transmigration of the soul, as received by the
Pgyptians, appears to have been one through the
heavenly mansions, passing from glory to glory. The
Heron, which was a symbol of Osiris, was also a
symbol of the first transformation of the soul in the
paradise of Osiris. (M. Rougé.)
The deceased, on admission to the heavenly state,
was supposed to be born again, and to commence a
new life, cleansed from all the impurities of earth.
To die was only to assume a new form, and, as
nothing was annihilated, dissolution was merely the
forerunner of reproduction: such was the prevalent
idea among the Egyptians. (See Wilkinson.) Now,
this was precisely what was meant by Siva and his
operations, and which was symbolically set forth by
the equilateral triangle, and monumentally by the
pyramid. Since Siva and Osiris were in this sense
identical, can we then doubt that the Egyptians,
24 SYMBOLISM IN TREFERENCE TO ART.
by their sepulchral pyramids, intended to signify
the same thing, that the soul of the deceased had
ascended on high, while his body remained below,
protected from the injuries of time, at some future
period to be reanimated by its spiritual partner.
The great number of tombs about the Pyramids
would seem to strengthen this suggestion of their
meaning.
The Greeks believed the soul to be a particle of
divine etherial fire, at least this was the doctrine
of Heraclitus, to whom Plato and others were sub-
sequently much indebted,—which particle, on being
released from the body, sought to return again to
the sphere from whence it had descended; and they
regarded the pyramid as a symbol of the soul. The
pyramid was, in fact, the form assigned by Plato to
the particles themselves of elemental fire; and fire,
from the days of Moses to our own, has been held
symbolical of the Divine presence: hence, in the
name which the Greeks gave to this geometrical
figure, Tupapals, from Tüp, fire, we may perceive that
they recognized in it a sacred symbolical meaning.
Osiris was also the judge before whom the soul
appeared on its separation from the body. Repre-
sentations are frequent of this final trial, in which
the actions of the deceased are weighed in the Divine
balance. The scene transpires in the Hall of Amenti,
or Hades. Osiris is seated on his throne, Horus and
IEGYPTIAN SYMBOLISM. 25
Anubis superintend the process, and Thoth, the re-
corder, or, as his legend denotes, “the Lord of the
Divine Writings,” inscribes the result on his tablet
for presentation to Osiris. In one scale is a vase
containing the actions, or the heart, of the deceased;
in the other, a figure, or the symbol, of truth, an
ostrich feather. If the individual, on being thus
weighed, was found wanting, which rarely happened,
he was sent back again to earth in a degraded form;
if not, after a purgation by flame, he was admitted
to the celestial abodes; but, if incorrigibly bad, was
condemned to eternal fire."
A similar representation is occasionally met with
in Christian churches, where, in place of the Egyptian
ministers, we have Michael the Archangel and the
Devil, the latter being introduced among the dramatis
personae as artfully endeavouring to deceive him.
There is a very elaborate and interesting example
of this over the portal of the cathedral of Autun,
dedicated to St. Lazare. M. du Sommerard, in his
great work, “Les Arts du Moyen Age,” has given a
plate of it (plate xxi., part iii), and M. de Caumont
has also given a representation of it in his “Abécé-
daire” (Architecture Religieuse), p. 167, 3rd edition.
The lizard, which a Satanic assistant is about to toss
1 See a plate of this in Wilkinson; second series, plate 88. See
also “The Egyptians in the Time of the Pharaohs,” p. 130. See
Rougé, Rossellini, Lepsius, and others.
26 SYMBOLISM IN REFERENCE TO ART.
into the scale, to weigh it down in his master's favour,
is a symbol of sin, and reminds one of the crocodile,
which, with many of the Egyptians, had this signifi-
cation.
A fresco of the same subject is said to exist on the
south side of the chancel wall of Preston Church,
Sussex; in this the sinner is saved by the timely
intervention of the Virgin Mary.
The fundamental religious doctrine of the Egyp-
tians touching the Deity, was His unity: when this
unity became active it received different names,
and these operations, being personified in objec-
tive forms, gave rise to the popular gods of the
Egyptians."
In the formation of these figures—mostly human
bodies with the heads of various animals, as that of
the ibis, for Thoth, to whom that bird was sacred;
that of the shakal, for Anubis; of the sparrow-hawk,
for Horus, of whom these were symbols—it is obvious
that they were purely ideal representations, and that
it was never intended that they should be taken for
realities: they were symbolical figures and nothing
more. But Moses, who followed the Egyptian learn-
ing in many things, very wisely prohibited all images;
had he not done so, the Hebrews might have had as
many gods as their neighbours, for the Deity also
1 Wilkinson's “Popular Account of the Ancient Egyptians,” vol. i.,
pp. 327-328; Spineto's Lectures, etc.
EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE SYMBOLICAL. 27
received from them many names, according to his
various operations.
WI.-EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE SYMBOLICAL.
The primitive temples of the Egyptians were in
harmony with the monotheistic character of their
early religion, and consisted of a small quadrangular
chamber, or sanctuary, containing the sacred image
and the altar; it was entered by the priests only, the
people assisting without the entrance in front. Sub-
sequently, a porch was added, and the inner chamber
then became the adytum.
When triads were introduced, instead of one inner
chamber there were three, and the ante-room, or porch,
which had been in part thrown open by the substitu-
tion of columns, with a low screen between them, in-
stead of the wall, was replaced by a transverse corridor:
an avenue of sphinxes, composed of a lion's body and
a human head, the symbol of force combined with in-
telligence, led from the temple to the pylon, or gate-
way of the enclosure, which was planted with trees,
and became the “sacred grove,” or temenos, in imi-
tation of man’s primaeval places of worship, and pos-
sibly in accordance with a universal primitive tradi-
tion. The direction of these temples was usually east
and west. t
28 SYMBOLISM IN REFERENCE TO ART.
To these elements of a complete temple, additional
halls and avenues might be added, as we know that
they were, from time to time, by the kings, the sym-
bolical derivation of whose authority was set forth
over the principal portico in the winged sun with the
Eureus, the symbol of the supreme ruler.
This general arrangement was very like that adop-
ted by Moses for the Tabernacle in the wilderness.
There was the oblong inclosure, in length about twice
its breadth, the entrance to which was from the east;
and at the western extremity of this sacred court was
the sanctuary, in length three times its breadth, which
was only ten cubits, or thirty feet; the interior was
divided unequally into an antechamber, two-thirds of
the length, called the holy, the front of which had
only a curtain and no boarding, as on the sides and
back; and an inner chamber, or adytum, called the
holy of holies, separated from the former by a drapery
called the inner veil, made of the richest materials of
blue, and purple, and scarlet, embroidered with figures
of cherubim. The curtains for the sanctuary were
also of blue, and purple, and scarlet, in which we may
recognize the Egyptian taste for colour in architec-
ture, with which the Sydenham court has made us all
familiar. -
It is not my intention to show the correspondence
between the “ark of the covenant,” the “cherubim,”
and other matters touching the Hebrew ritual and
EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE SYMBOLICAL. 29
rites, with similar symbols and usages among the
Egyptians: what Selden and others intimated long
ago has now been satisfactorily proved, and can no
longer be doubted: the correspondence shows that
Moses deemed the profound symbolical lore of the
Egyptian priests, by whom he had been carefully
educated, their forms, dresses, processions, with the
sacred ark, and all the pomp and circumstances of
the sacerdotal order, not unworthy of imitation in the
religious services and ceremonies of the Jews.
The general arrangement of the Egyptian temple
was followed by the Greeks, and to a certain extent
by the Romans, and from the Romans passed into
Mediaeval Europe, and so has descended to ourselves,
modified by elements derived from the far East, and
by a symbolism of earlier origin. The state ceremo-
nies of the Latin church retain much of the ancient
Oriental pomp ; nor can we witness the high func-
tions enacted in St. Peter's at Rome, without being
struck by their resemblance to what we see on Egyp-
tian monuments in the triumphal bearing of the
Pontiff-king.
It has always appeared to me, in contemplat-
ing the architecture of different countries, that
there is a certain analogy between the prevalent
forms therein used and those of their alphabetic
characters.
Architecture is undoubtedly the expression of the
30 SYMBOLISM IN REFERENCE TO ART.
intelligence, science, mode of thinking, and imagina-
tion of a people; but it is also more : it is in a manner
symbolical of themselves, their habits, customs, etc.,-
and that quite as much, if not more so, than their
literature and their language. Some very discrimi-
nating persons can determine the characters of people
from their handwriting; the characters of nations may
be distinguished by their architecture, to which their
alphabetic forms hold a certain analogous relation.
This is a subject we cannot now go into, but it must
occur to every one that in the straight-lined Greek
letters, avoiding all curves, we have a characteristic
of Greek architecture; while in the B's and C’s and
swelling D's of the Romans we recognize the intro-
duction of those rounded forms, the arch and the
cupola, and, if we may so say, a certain heaviness,
and comparative want of taste, which the Greeks care-
fully avoided. In the angular Gothic characters of
the German race we see the type of their architecture;
and in the flowing, fanciful, curved, and interlacing
letters of the Arabs, not only may we discern the
florid style of their literature, but the highly imagi-
native character of their architecture also.
The Egyptian architecture would indicate a people
of grand ideas, and of confirmed religious convictions.
In the series of Egyptian orders symbolism is
obvious. -
The papyrus plant, no longer indigenous, was an
EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE SYMBOLICAL, 31
emblem of lower Egypt. In that, geologically speak-
ing, recently formed alluvial tract of land, architec-
ture and the arts first flourished, for the civilization of
Egypt ascended the Nile. The papyrus column is the
earliest distinctive Egyptian order we can now re-
cognize; the square pillar and the polygonal, or fluted
shaft, have no especial Egyptian character in their
forms, though they might have had in their ornament-
ation. To a people so symbolically disposed as were the
Egyptians, and among whom the equilateral triangle
was a sacred conventional sign, the triangular form
of the stem of the papyrus may have recommended it
to their special notice; and we find the imitation of
this plant, or of four such plants bound together, the
earliest of the symbolical series of orders. The capital
represents the flower in the bud. In the next, the
fourth of Sir Gardner Wilkinson’s arrangement, we
have, what he calls, the full-blown papyrus capital.
In the following we have the palm-tree capital. At
one time the palm-tree was the Sacred Tree in the
Paradise of Osiris, and the palm-tree, surmounted by
an ostrich feather, was significant of Lower Egypt,
or the happy West. It occurs in this sense in the
zodiac of Dendera.
The other orders are those with the Isis-headed
capital; the full-blown lotus-headed capital, some-
times surmounted by the head of Isis and her sym-
bol; the Osiride order; and that with the Typho-
32 SYMBOLISM IN REFERENCE TO ART.
nian monster: the symbolical meaning of these no
one can doubt."
The Typhonian monster was probably a Grecianized
and satirical version of Seth, the evil principle, in
contradistinction to Osiris, the good principle. Seth
appears to have been considered by the ancient Egyp-
tians as Satan was by Job—one who could present
himself among the sons of God, and be received along
with them,--a very different personage from the Dia-
bolus of modern times, whom the Middle Ages meta-
morphosed into a very discreditable being, with whom
it was best to have nothing to do. The Typhon of
the Greeks probably holds the same relation to Seth,
as the scarecrow of the monks does to the Satan of
Scripture. The symbol of sin among the Egyptians
was the gigantic snake Apophis.
The lotus plant was as sacred with the Egyptians
as with the Indians. According to Rougé, it was the
symbol of the new birth ; but Lepsius considers that
it was the symbol of inexhaustible life; Rossellini re-
garded it as symbolical of the female principle among
the Buddhists. The bodies of the saints are repro-
duced from the lotus, pure and holy; it may there-
fore be held symbolical of the womb of Nature, and,
in a spiritual sense, of Regeneration. No plant was
so great a favourite with the Egyptians as this.
* The Egyptian orders of Architecture, as also the arrangement of
their temples, were illustrated at the lecture by drawings.
SYMBOLISM OF LIONS AND OTHER ANIMALS. 33
WII.-SYMBOLISM OF LIONS AND OTHER
ANIMALS.
Along with Egyptian architecture, some notice
should be taken of Egyptian lions. In Egypt the
lion was symbolical of the overflowing of the Nile.
When the sun was in Leo, the greatest rise took
place; hence lions’ mouths came to be a speciality of
water-spouts, as lions themselves were of fountains of
water; but it is chiefly with the sun that their con-
nection lies. Horus, as the sun-god, had his throne.
supported by lions (Rougè).
The child Horus, seated on a lotus-flower, expand-
ing as it rose to the surface of the water, was sym-
bolical of the sunrise, and of the eternal youth of the
divinity. Lions were also associated with the worship
of Mithras, or the sun.
The lions at the gate of Mycene are supposed to
have been connected with Mithras; but, I think, this
is a mistake. Tions, oxen, and cherubim—a rather
singular fellowship—were among the brazen orna-
ments of Solomon’s temple (1 Kings vii. 29). Two
lions stood on the side of Solomon's throne (1 Kings
x. 19). So they did also at the sides of the throne of
the king of Egypt, as we may see on monuments;
and possibly the son-in-law of the Egyptian monarch
may thence have taken the idea; but the symbolical
3
34 SYMBOLISM IN REFERENCE TO ART.
meaning of lions in this situation had reference to the
administration of justice. It is probable that the
Romanesque architects derived their lions from the
Bible record; and their position at church doors,
frequently with the columns of the porch resting on
their backs, had a reference to the custom of admin-
istering justice there, and the rendering of certain
public acts, so that the porch, with its lions, became
a tribunal, and hence the formula which many public
acts and documents bear, “inter leones.” M. de Cau-
mont has some interesting remarks on this subject.
The lions over the gate of Mycene had probably a
similar meaning; they were there as symbols of jus-
tice and judgment, for the gates of cities in the olden
time were often made the places for administering the
law. I once thought that the lions of Daniel—so
frequently seen on early Christian sarcophagi—might
have had something to do with those at church
porches; but, I believe, the association of lions with
places of justice is of much earlier date than the days
of Daniel. It is true, Shylock exclaims, “A Daniel,
a very Daniel, come to judgment;”
self might be put for the perpetual symbol of all
righteous judges; but the poets, to whom we are often
indebted for preserving the popular vestiges of nearly
worn-out usages and exploded lore, and to no one
more so than our immortal Shakspeare, have occa-
sional reference to the lion as the symbol of clemency,
and Daniel him-
SYMBOLISM OF LIONS AND OTHER ANIMALS. 35
and of generosity combined with power. Thus Troilus,
upbraiding his brother Hector for sparing the fallen
Grecians, bidding them rise and live, says:—
“Brother, you have a vice of mercy in you,
Which better fits a lion than a man.”
Troilus and Cressida, act v., sc. 3.
The aspect and noble bearing of the lion is expres-
sive of dignity and power. Unlike all other members
of the Felis family, he holds up his head and looks
you full in the face, and has appropriately enough
been called the king of animals. The Lion with a
human head, the union of the greatest muscular force
with the highest intellect, becomes the Sphina, and
as such is symbolical of the Egyptian royal authority.
The sacred Sphinx had the head of an eagle, and
there were others also. The winged bull, with a human
head, had, among the Assyrians, a similar symbolical
meaning to that of the royal Sphinx among the
Egyptians.
Lions draw the car of Cybele, the Earth, or the
great mother, possibly to symbolize her influence and
authority. Among the Assyrians, Beltis, the female
form of Baal, or the lord, and consequently the queen
of heaven, was represented standing on a lion. The
lion is an emblem of solitude as well as of royal power.
In Christian symbolism, lions are associated with Paul
the Hermit; and, according to the golden legend, they
dug the good man’s grave. A lion is given as a com-
36 SYMBOLISM IN REFERENCE TO ART.
panion to St. Jerome; and a unicorn is put by the
side of the fair St. Justina, to signify her purity and
virtue. The lion and the unicorn meet together as
supporters of the royal arms of England; but here the
British lion is rather an equivocal character, placed
vis-a-vis his spotless associate, and their union savours
of a Persian myth; for, while the unicorn is the first
of the pure animals of Ormuzd, the lion is one of the
impure animals of Ahriman; and so the royal autho-
rity in England, or its symbol, is upheld by supporters
of opposite principles.
Having said so much of the royal lion, I must, in
justice, say something of the imperial eagle, not that
this bird has to do with architecture, as the former,
nor has it been made a sign in the heavens: it
only stands by the side of Jupiter, the lord of the
sky, and its personification, whence come lightnings
and the bolts of the thunderer; but Apollo, or the
sun, claims the eagle, no less than Jove, or the sky;
and with an equal right, for while the eagle soars aloft
in the upper regions of the atmosphere, and builds its
nest in high places, it has a wonderful sight, and
could, from time immemorial, look steadfastly at the
sun. Dante notices this (Pard. i., 48); on Beatrice
gazing intensely at that luminary, he exclaims:—
“Aquila si non gli s' affisse unquanco.” "
* We may observe the eagle, as a symbol of Apollo, on an altar to
that Leader of the Muses, in the Museum of the Capitol.”
SYMBOLISM OF LIONS AND OTHER ANIMALS. 37
Possibly the wonderful eyesight of the eagle may
have had something to do with the bird becoming the
symbol of St. John, who, in his vision, looking up
steadfastly, saw an angel standing in the sun. The
history of the eagle as an imperial ensign will be
found in Canto WI. of the Paradise of Dante. Con-
sidering the character of this bird, we cannot be sur-
prised that the Aigle Français should long have had
its eye upon the summit of Mont Blanc.
THE SERPENT-This somewhat anomalous animal
has acted a very important part in the progress of
symbolism; it has had a good meaning given to it,
and a very bad one. It has been an emblem of wis-
dom, and, par eaccellence, the symbol of sin. With a
pair of wings it became the Seraph. Curled up, in a
circle, with the tip of its tail in its mouth, it has
stood for time without end. Twisted round the staff
of AEsculapius, it has been the symbol of health. Set
up by Moses in the Wilderness, as the brazen serpent,
to cure the Israelites of the venomous bites they had
received from real serpents, it became, according to
St. John (iii. 14, 15), a type of Christ, raised up
as the salutiferous cure for the sins of mankind,
bitten, it may be supposed, to carry out the figure,
by the evil one and his emissaries. The position of
the serpent seems to have had an important influence
on its character. When erect with wings, or standing
on the end of its tail, it had a good name; when going
38 SYMBOLISM IN REFERENCE TO ART.
on its belly, a bad one. From prehistoric times it
was considered “more subtle than any beast of the
field' (Gen. iii. 1); and among the ancient Egyp-
tians, as the monster Apóp (Apophis), was the symbol
of sin. Subsequently it got identified with the Devil,
“that old serpent” of the Apocalypse.
Serpents, as subtle animals, are contrasted in the
Gospel with doves, as simple ones. “Be ye wise as
serpents, harmless as doves,” said our Lord to his
disciples, when he sent them forth as sheep in the
midst of wolves (Matth. x. 16). In Christian sym-
bolism sheep are the followers of Christ, who is the
good Shepherd; the wolves who worry and devour the
sheep, are the emissaries of the Devil, with whom the
Wolf is synonymous. In the Divina Commedia of
Dante, the Lupa, the she-wolf, the ensign of the
Curia Romana, is the Pope ruling in Rome as a
temporal power, by the Poet regarded as the great
evil of Italy, and shown to be so in subsequent
times.
THE CROCODILE.—This animal, sometimes regarded
as an emblem of hypocrisy, has, like the serpent, had
a reputation for evil and for good. At Thebes, and
in some other cities of Egypt, it was held sacred, and
venerated; at Apollinopolis, Tentyris, and elsewhere,
it was regarded as the symbol of sin, equally with the
monster Typhon, who was believed, in that form, to
have escaped the pursuit of Horus. As representa-
SYMBOLISM OF LIONS AND OTHER ANIMALS. 39
tives of evil the Crocodile and the Lizard may go
together. ->
THE SCARABAEUs.—The sacred beetle of the Egyp-
tians was one of their most remarkable symbols. It
signified, generally, creative power, and was some-
times put for the Sun, and for the World. In a
mystical sense it was the symbol of the divine or
celestial generation, by which the defunct would be
restored to a new and perpetual life; and along with
every mummy a scarabaeus of green jasper, or other
stone of corresponding colour, was ordered to be
placed.
Among the Egyptians the Vulture stood for mater-
nity; the Goose signified offspring ; the Ureus was
put for royalty; the Jackal for watchfulness over
sacred things, and therefore for a priest; the Hawk
signified intelligence; the Cynocephalus perfect equi-
librium, and as such it was seated on the balance of
Thoth, in which the good and evil deeds of the soul
were weighed."
A history of animals in reference to their symbolical
characters, while it would show much that is interest-
ing in their habits and manners, would at the same
1 The heads of a hawk, jackal, cynocephalus, and that of Amset, com-
bined with the human form, constituted the four Genii of the Amenti,
whose names were Kebhnsnof, Smautſ, Hapi, and Amset ; busts of these
were placed on the Canopic jars containing the viscera of the embalmed.
Amset took charge of the stomach and large intestines, Hapi of the
small intestines, Smaulf of the lungs and heart, and Kebhnsnaf of the
gall bladder and liver. .
40 SYMBOLISM IIM REFERENCE TO ART,
time throw considerable light on the theology, my-
thology, and art history of the ancients.
The Greeks, by not caring to ascertain the sym-
bolical value of animals' heads, came to treat the
gods of the Egyptians with very little respect. Wit
here took the place of wisdom, and they sought to
turn into ridicule what they did not care to understand.
VIII.-LIGHT AS A SYMBOL.
From the consideration of LIFE in its general and
special, animal and vegetable forms, as sources of
symbolism, we pass to the consideration of LIGHT.
Here, also, we must begin with the Orientals. The
subject would, indeed, soon carry us off from this
world into those poetic and theological regions, where
life, and light, and love, are eternally and inseparably
united; but we must leave alone for the present the
heavenly Hierarchy and the orders of Angels, which
have little or nothing in common with the orders of
architecture, other than a rising scale from the lower
to the higher, from the more humble to the more
elevated, and are pleasingly associated in the mind
with places of prayer, where, as pictorial and plastic
ornaments, they often appear.
In the worship of intellectual light, or reason, the
sun, as the visible source of light and life, came to
LIGHT AS A SYMBOL. 41
occupy an important place in religious symbolism,
and consequently had much influence on art. Pro-
bably light and life were thus originally associated to-
gether, as they are still. But there can be no doubt,
I think, that, among certain nations, the sun was
adored as the chief ruler, along with the host of
heaven, not in a symbolical sense merely, but in a
real and material one.
Light, by the sacred writers, is invariably associated
with the Divine life and love, and the children of
light are the partakers in this life, they are the sons
of God.
“God, under his visible form,” observes M. Didron,
“is light, his most constant natural symbol;” and
when our Saviour says, “I am the light of the world,”
he thinks the words should be taken as much in a
literal as in a figurative sense, God is also love.
The sun being looked upon as the visible symbol of
Deity, that is of the supreme ruler, temporal rulers,
regarded as the delegates of Deity, came to receive
the titles of sons and descendants of the sun. Thus
the kings of Egypt were called “Sons of the Sun,”
and the kings of Persia, I believe, are so still. One
of the titles of the Emperor of China is Téen-tsze,
the Son of Heaven; and the imperial family are called
Téen-hwang, significant of their celestial descent. (See
“Morrison's Dictionary.”)
Something of this relationship passed from the East
42 SYMBOLISM IN REFERENCE TO ART.
to the West, through the Christian emperors of Con-
stantinople, who are occasionally represented with a
celestial glory or nimbus, as are also several of the
German emperors." This symbol, in the East, signi-
fied power rather than holiness. A head of Constan-
tine, on his arch, is thus characterized. It was not
introduced into Christian art until the fifth century.
By the fathers of the Church, Jesus Christ was
named the New Sun. In the Roman Church, the
Ostensoir, containing the hostia, or sacred wafer, ap-
pears as a radiating sun, and the outer portion of it
is so called.
Philology here steps in to confirm the deductions
from symbolism, and shows that all divine persons
are very properly distinguished by glories, since the
word divine, in Latin divus, is derived from the
Sanskrit root div, to shine.” -
Durandus has a remark on church windows that
they symbolically transmit the light of the true sun
—that is, God—into the hearts of the faithful.
Our Pointed Christian architecture, with its
clerestory windows, is here symbolical of the truth
that “Light has come into the world.” A sym-
bolism shown still more in some cathedrals in France.
* See the Inconographie of M. Didron.
* The title Divus was given to several of the Roman Emperors,
but after their decease only; it occurs on the Arch of Titus, on the
Colonna Antonina, on the frieze of the temple of Antonino e Faustina,
etc. In the latter, Diva is given to the wife.
SYMBOLS OF CHRISTIAN SAINTS. 43
This subject is intimately connected with the sym-
bolism of Saints.
• Light was also associated with divine love. The
Holy Spirit, so aptly distinguished by the profound
theological poet, Dante, as “il primo amore,” is re-
presented descending in form like a dove, bathed in a
flood of light, on the head of the Saviour (Matth. iii.
16). The dove, the ancient Gentile symbol of
Venus, and emblematic of the tender passion, has
since, when surrounded with a glory, become the re-
cognized symbol of the third person in the Trinity.
Dante describes the highest heaven, the special seat
of the Divine Glory, as consisting of Light and Love.
“Luce ed amor d'un cerchio lui comprende.”—Pard. xxvii., 112.
Light also, in the highest spiritual sense, is sym-
bolically synonymous with life, just as darkness is
with death. Light and life and love become, there-
fore, the expressions of an intellectual tri-unity, or
Trinity, in which, though each is different to the
other two, all three are in substance the same.
IX. —SYMBOLS OF CHRISTIAN SAINTS.
Symbols in reference to Saints may be conveniently
classed under three heads,-general symbols, special
symbols, and personal, or particular symbols.
GENERAL SYMBOLS are those pertaining to classes
or orders of persons. Thus, the nimbus is a general
44 SYMBOLISM IN REFERENCE TO ART.
symbol characteristic of all saints. It is of Gentile
origin, and probably derived from the disc of the sun.
The personations of the sun, moon, and planets, were
naturally represented with glories. In Christian art
its forms and modes of representation have varied at
different times from a flat, circular, solid plate, to a
scarcely visible ring. When square, it indicates the
saint to have been still living. The palm-branch is a
general symbol characteristic of all martyrs.
The larger oval-shaped glory, mandorla or auréola,
surrounding the entire person (also of Gentile origin),
as seen enveloping the figures of the Holy Trinity,
and of the Virgin Mary, may be considered as a special
symbol." .
The nimbus, with a cross within it, is a particular
or personal symbol, significant of the incarnate word.
The crown is a special symbol given to all royal
saints, as St. Louis of France; St. Louis, bishop of
Toledo; Sta. Ursula; Sta. Catherine of Alexandria;
Sta. Margherite of Hungary; and a few others.
Sta. Ursula of Brittany is sometimes without a
crown, but rarely without a banner, a red cross on
a white ground. Like her royal sister, in martyr-
* The auréola, or aureole, means literally the luminous atmosphere or
cloud surrounding a divine person. Such is the nimbo effulgens described
by Virgil (AEn. ii. 615-6) as surrounding the figure of Pallas, posted on
a lofty turret on the walls of devoted Troy—
Jam summas arces Tritonia, respice, Pallas
Insedit, nimbo effulgens et Gorgone sava.
SYMBOLS OF CHRISTIAN SAINTS. 45
dom, of Alexandria, she bears the palm-branch, and
is known at once by the arrow or arrows with which
she was shot to death; while the latter is represented
with the wheel, her characteristic symbol. Whenever
we see a female martyr with a wheel, whether there
be the crown or not, we know at once that it is meant
for St. Catherine of Alexandria, whose mystical mar-
riage with the Saviour was a favourite subject with
the old masters. Her namesake of Siena is known by
the stimate, or impressions of the nails of the cross in
her hands and feet. She sometimes holds a lily,
sometimes a book and pen, for she also was a learned
lady, and had the pen of a ready writer.
St. Louis of France, and he of Toledo, both wear
crowns, and have the fleur-de-lis on their dresses;
but the bishop saint is known at once from the other
by his holding the bishop's staff, and by the dress of
a Franciscan appearing below his royal robe.
The holding a book distinguishes the head, or
founder, of a religious order from one of the fraternity
only,–it is the book of the rules. Among the Apostles,
holding a book is significant of the four Evangelists,
as distinguished from the others; but among them-
selves they are characterized by their particular sym-
bols—the angel, the winged lion, the oz, and the
eagle—derived from the vision of Ezekiel.
St. Peter is known at once by his keys ; St. Paul
by his sword: they should also be known by their
46 SYMBOLISM IN REFERENCE TO ART.
physiognomies and general bearing. The early masters
were very careful to impress the traditional character
of these, and other apostles, on their figures. St. Paul
was dignified and philosophic looking, he had a high
forehead, symbolical of his commanding intellect, an
oval head, and a long beard; there was also an un-
flinching firmness, and a certain severity, in his ex-
pression. St. Peter, on the contrary, looked like one
of the people, a fisherman,—beardless, with short
cut hair, and a rounded head, but with great deter-
mination and energy.
This was a different sort of symbolism to that of
marks and signs, and was allied to that highest and
most perfect kind which Michel Angelo, Raphael, and
the great masters of art delighted in, and which the
admirable Thorwaldsen has in recent times revived.
The banner is a special symbol; it is given to
St. George, to St. Julian, to St. Maurice, to St. Ansano
of Siena, and some others: as held by our risen Lord,
however, it is a particular symbol significant of His
triumph over death and hell.
To distinguish saints, who have characteristics in
common, we must carefully observe the circumstances
in which they agree, and in which they differ, and
we ought to know something of their reputed his-
tories. The golden legend is here invaluable.
The earlier sculptors and painters paid more at-
tention to the correct characteristics of Saints than
SYMBOLS OF CHRISTIAN SAINTS. 47
their successors, and it is from the former that we
must take our rules. The early school of Siena is, I
think, the best for this purpose; and the gallery at
Siena affords a convincing evidence of it.
The lily, in the hands of Saints, both male and
female, is a special symbol of purity,+it is given
to the Virgin Mary, with great propriety, and also
to the angel Gabriel; St. Benedict, and St. Dominic,
and others have it, as also many female saints who are
otherwise distinguished.
A male figure in a black dress, and holding a lily
and a book, will, in all probability, be meant for
St. Benedict; if the dress be black and white, it will
signify St. Dominic.
The head of our Lord, if properly rendered, can
never be mistaken. Neither can that of his pre-
cursor, the Baptist. As the holding of a book is
characteristic of the Evangelists, as distinguished
from the other apostles, so the holding of an open
book, in which are the Greek letters Alpha and
Omega, is significant of Christ. Scrolls held in the
hands of Scriptural figures are indicative of the pro-
phets: if these scrolls be open, the prophecy is shown
to have been accomplished: if unrolled, still to come.
The Sibyls also carry scrolls; but both these and the
former usually require to have their names written.
The model of a city, held in the hand of a saint,
signifies the patron of that city. The model of a
48 SYMBOLISM IN REFERENCE TO ART.
church, in the same way, signifies the founder of that
church. An ark held in the hand is a particular
symbol of St. Ambrose.
Nakedness—with the exception of St. Sebastian,
the protector against the plague, shot to death with
arrows, which may be symbolical only—is character-
istic of the hermit saints. St. Jerome, in his cave at
Bethlehem, is thus represented, with his friend the
lion at his side, and his red hat, though this latter is
scarcely necessary to confirm his identity.
St. Paul, the hermit, appears naked, with a crutch
and a long beard; St. Onofrio has an apron of fig-
leaves; Sta. Maria Egiziaca has no other covering
than that which nature has given her; but the
modest Magdalens, with dishevelled hair and stream-
ing eyes, show no more of their beautiful persons
than is consistent with symbolical propriety.
X.—RESUME, AND REFERENCE TO CHRISTIAN
ARCHITECTURE.
Having endeavoured to show that symbolical prin-
ciples are derivable from the two great fundamental
agents in nature, Life and Light, either separately or
combined, and that their influence through architec-
ture, sculpture, and painting, as also through the
sister art of poetry, has descended from the most
remote antiquity, in a tolerably connected series of
RESUME of CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE. 49
representations, down to our own day, it remains
only to point out how our national Christian archi-
tecture derives its forms and proportions from the
principles already laid down.
THE CRoss.-The symbol of life, even of life eter-
nal, has been traced from the earliest period of menu-
mental history, along with the equilateral triangle,
the symbol of the generation of all things, of the
source of all life, of Siva, of Osiris, and of all Trinities
in unity.
Nor has their union been confined to the earth ;
man, whose ideas, derived from terrestrial objects, are
reflected back to him from the heavens, as the subject
ôf his speculative thoughts, has transferred these
images also to the starry firmament, and, in the
southern hemisphere, the constellation of the cross
shines with surpassing splendour along with the
equilateral triangle. -
Dut it is in reference to that intellectual and
Christian heaven of the soul, of which the Church
on earth is the received prefigure, that we must now
consider the symbol of life, and its ancient associate
the equilateral triangle. And surely nothing can be
more in harmony with nature and revelation than, in
Christian temples, where the great doctrines of life
and immortality are taught, not as mysteries to the
initiated only, but as the plainest of facts are preached
openly to all, that the architecture of these sacred edi-
4
50 syMBOLISM IN REFERENCE TO ART.
fices, in its form and details, should be regulated by
those symbols which from the earliest times have been
used to express them—the cross and the equilateral
triangle.
In Christianity there is a gathering in of all re-
ligious truth that has been scattered through the
world from the day when first our little planet, re-
volving in its annual orbit, became the habitation of
human beings rejoicing in life and light. And in
that style of architecture to which the growth and
development of Christianity in its palmy days gave
rise, we recognize a structural confirmation of this
fact in the principles that regulated it.
Our cathedrals, and the great Christian temples in
France and Germany, and some in Italy, are built in
the form of the cross; and the equilateral triangle
has regulated the general proportions of the elevation,
and often of its details. This has been shown by
Caesar Caesarianus in his translation of Vitruvius, of
whose ingenious observations Mr. Hawkins, in his
History of Gothic Architecture, has given an account.
Brown Willis, in his preface to the second volume
of his “History of Abbeys,” p. 8, has noticed that in
most of these stately edifices the height was equal to
the breadth of the body and side aisles. Agincourt,
also, has recognized this in reference to certain Gothic
façades (Tav. xlvi., figs. 21, 22). The cathedral of
Salisbury and Westminster Abbey are certainly de-
RESUMſ. OF CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE. 51
signed, says Mr. Hawkins, on a system of triangu-
lation; and there cannot, I think, be a doubt that
the triple ratio has regulated the principal features,
no less than the details, of our most perfect examples
of Christian architecture.
These principles have been tested and successfully
applied more recently by various architects. The best
account I have met with of them is in a paper read
by Mr. White at the anniversary meeting of the
Ecclesiological Society, June 2nd, 1853, and printed in
the fourteenth volume of the Ecclesiologist. Mr. White
states, “the figures applicable to the setting out of
Mediaeval buildings are these :-1st, the square; 2nd,
the equilateral triangle; 3rd, certain arcs described
upon diagonals and bases of the same. We are chiefly
concerned here with churches; now, the length of the
nave being given, we can, by dividing it into bays,
and setting up upon each bay equilateral triangles,
or certain subdivisions of the same, show an accurate
method of setting out its breadth, the length and
breadth of the chancel, and other proportions of the
ground plan. Upon the ground plan thus obtained,
we can, by the employment of certain angles, set up
points for the heights of the several windows and
arches, the roofs of the several parts, the stages of
towers, and everything else; and, when all these
heights have been set up, we can then, and not till
then, proceed to work out the relative widths of the
52 SYMBOLISM IN REFERENCE TO ART.
windows and other minor parts, with every detail,
even to the plan of the jambs and mullions, and the
section of mouldings.” In fact, as Mr. White ob-
serves, “the equilateral triangle appears to be the
basis of the proportions employed in the most beauti-
ful of all our styles, the untraceried and traceried
first pointed.” The paper is well illustrated with
drawings and diagrams.
Since these remarks were written, I have seen an
essay" on the application of harmonic angular pro-
portion to Gothic architecture. The statement to the
effect that the equilateral triangle appears to control
all the proportions of the ground plan in Mediaeval
buildings, and especially their choirs, corresponds
with the result of my own investigations on paper;
the same principle may be applied to the choirs of
some other cathedrals not in the Gothic style. But
it would seem from the statements of Mr. Hay that
this triangulation forms only a part of what he calls
“the harmonic law of nature.” On this subject I
cannot enter, but he affirms, and I dare say he has
shown to the satisfaction of many professional archi-
tects, that this law is as applicable to the finest Doric
temples of the Greeks as it is to our Gothic cathedrals,
—for the canons of beauty in art are, no doubt, derived
from as fixed principles as are the phenomena of
* “Builder,” March 3, 1860.
RESUMā OF CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE. 53
Nature, although it is the reward of patient study
and industry alone to discover and appreciate them.
Pointed Christian architecture thus becomes itself
a symbol, and a very significant one, with which its
sculpture, paintings, and ornamental features all con-
spire to create a consistent and edifying whole.
Offspring of a Christian philosophy, and of Chris-
tian feelings, light, ačrial, and heavenward in its
tendency, it rises up with a spirituality entirely its
own, and though we cannot subscribe to the dreams
of Durandus, we cannot withold from it the entire
credit of that symbolism which it so perfectly conveys.
The enlightened Greeks, in their sacred edifices,
combined, to the utmost of their ability, on philoso-
phic principles, the grand, the beautiful, and the true.
The grand, as displayed in form and magnitude.
The beautiful, as manifested in form, proportion,
arrangement, and colour.
The true, as shown in the construction, in the cha-
racter of the building, its materials, and workmanship,
in which nothing false, nothing meretricious, nothing
unmeaning, found a place.
Our pious forefathers, with a conscientious in-
tegrity, fully carried out these principles of the
Greeks, and in the noble monuments they have left
us of their Christian munificence, have shown how
the grand, the beautiful, and the true, may receive
from Christian motives their highest development.
54 NOTE.
THE foregoing Essay, though placed first in this little volume, is in
fact much younger than the other two, and was written for a special
purpose, when Symbolism had become a favourite study with the
author. It was not derived from books, though these had furnished
the foundation of the subject, but rather from the gleanings made in
the museums and public galleries of Europe, which he had searched
through with this special object in view. The most important original
works, both old and recent, that could throw light on Symbolism, had
for years been familiar to him. To have given a list of them, would
have required many pages, for they form a very numerous class. One
work, however, should be mentioned, as the author was more indebted
to this than to any other. It was the “Religions de l’Antiquité,” by
M. Guigniaut, four vols., Paris, 1825, a translation, with additions, of
“Der Symbolik und Mythologie der alten Völker,” by Creuzer: Leipsic,
1819–24. Among other writers, he had also read and taken notes
from the following:—Bosio, Aringhus, Ciampini, Boldetti, Durandus,
Jezron, Bochantus, Bottari, Banier, Borlase, Mallet, Keysler, Stukeley,
Hyde, Perron, Foissey, Sir William Jones, Maurice, Dupuis, Davies,
JBryant, Dulaure, Stolberg, Faber, Sir W. Ouseley, Benjamin Constant,
IRémusat, Upham, Colebrooke, Higgins, Heeren, Serouac d'Agincourt, M.
Sommerade, Rosellini, Müller, Bingham, Bunsen, Burnouf, Wilkinson,
Layard, Lepsius, Flandin, Perret, Jameson, Fergusson, etc., etc., names
which ought to be familiar to all students who seek to inform them-
selves of what has been observed and written in modern times with
reference to the Symbolism of ancient religious cultes. Thus, out of old
and well-worn materials, the author endeavoured to extract something
new, and, from a chaos of unconnected forms, to draw forth, in a
methodical manner, the elements of a new science.
A subject of such extensive connections could only be very briefly
and imperfectly treated of in a single lecture; but it was thought
sufficient to bring it thus, in a general way, before the Institute of
British Architects, by way of calling attention to Symbolism as a
science intimately connected with architecture. In the discussion
that followed, Mr. White said he considered “that Symbolism was the
very poetry of architecture,” and “looked upon it, not as a mere
fanciful theory, but in the light of figurative language, which was the
only possible means of conveying abstract religious truth, or of making
it accessible and comprehensive to man.” And Mr. Beresford Hope
remarked, that “in the broad domain of Symbolism, the truth, life,
and originality of all architecture was to be found.” .
THE TREE OF LIFE.
THIs Essay on “The Art History of the Tree of Life” was com-
menced in 1853, during a tour in Germany. . It was not finished till
1855, after an excursion through the south of France, and a third visit
to Rome, to examine the remains of early Christian Symbolism, and
to test the theory which the author had conceived. It was read before
the Royal Society of Literature on the evening of May 11, 1859,
and was printed in “the Journal of Sacred Literature” for October
1862. A few alterations and additions have since been made to it.
In chronological order, this Essay ought to have preceded the other
two, but it was thought better to place it second, in connection with
the Essay on “Sacred Trees,” of which, strictly speaking, it forms a
part.
THE TREE OF LIFE.
IN the cosmographical sketch of the fundamental
truths touching the creation of the world, and of the
human race, given, in symbolical characters, in the
first and second chapters of the book of Genesis, as
preliminary to the history of a particular people, and
to an especial dispensation, we read that in a garden
planted by the Lord, for man’s reception, grew every
tree that was pleasant to the sight and good for food,
and that in the midst of this garden grew two other
trees, specified as “the Tree of Life,” and the “Tree
of the knowledge of good and evil.”
The sacred records take no further notice of the
latter tree, after man’s reported expulsion from this
garden; but they mention the former tree as still
furnishing the support of immortality in the paradise
of regenerated souls.
Thus in the Apocalypse, ii. 7, St. John, writing
of what “the Spirit” said unto him in his vision,
has these words, “To him that overcometh will I
give to eat of the Tree of Life, which is in the midst
of the paradise of God.” And in another place
(xxii. 2), speaking of the paradise and of the river of
58 THE TREE OF LIFE.
the water of life proceeding out of the throne of God
and of the Lamb, he says, “on either side of the river
was there the Tree of Life, which bare twelve manner
of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month, and the
leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations;”
and again, a little further on (xxii. 14), the same
Spirit declares unto him, “Blessed are they who
do his commandments, that they may have right to
the Tree of Life.”
The fact of a certain Tree of Life being introduced
at the commencement of the sacred records by one
who had been carefully educated in all the learning
of the Egyptians, would, a priori, lead us to suppose
that the Egyptians themselves possessed a knowledge
of such a tree, possibly as a part of the primitive cre-
dence of mankind, symbolically expressed, and that
traces of it might be found on their monuments, and
probably also on those of other nations; while the
signification given to it at the close of the second
canon, by one who, more than any other of our Lord's
disciples, treasured up his figurative philosophical and
psychological phrases, would tend to confirm this con-
jecture, by shewing the enlarged application of the
meaning.
On the sacred monuments of the Egyptians we do
find such a tree, a tree furnishing in the divine eco-
nomy of the spiritual man, the required nourishment
of everlasting life.
THE TREE OF LIFE. 59
Rosellini, in his great work on Egypt," has a scene
in Paradise, taken from a tomb at Thebes, in which
several generations of an Egyptian family which
flourished under the eighteenth dynasty up to the
time of Rameses III., or from the sixteenth century
B.C., to the thirteenth, are represented partaking of
this immortal nourishment, the fruit of the Tree of
Life, and receiving also the living water of life pro-
ceeding from the same divine source.
The paradise here intended is the state or place of
departed righteous souls, who, according to Egyptian
theology, as explained in the works of Rosellini, Wil-
kinson, Lepsius, Brugsch, Birch, and Emmanuel de
Rougé, have triumphed over evil through the power
of Osiris, whose name they bear, and are now set
down for ever in his heavenly kingdom. Osiris was
venerated as the incarnation of the goodness of the
Deity, and according to the last-mentioned authority,
was universally worshipped in Egypt, as the Re-
deemer of souls, two thousand years before Christ.
The head of this family was named Poèr, and the
members of it are shown seated in two rows on
thrones, one below the other; each is receiving from
the Tree of Life, or rather from the divine influence
residing in the tree, and personified as a vivifying
agent under the figure of the goddess Nutpe or Netpe,
| Monumenti Civili, vol. iii., p. 456, No. cxxxiv.
60 THE TREE OF LIFE.
a stream of the life-giving water, and at the same
time an offering of its fruit.
The tree is the ficus-sycamorus, the sycamore tree
of the Bible, and it stands on a sort of aquarium,
symbolical of the sacred Nile, the life-supporting
agent in the land of Egypt. Within this are various
fishes that inhabit its waters, certain plants that grow
on the surface, and birds that fly above, while the
lotus is seen on its banks, and a heron, the symbol of
the first transformation of the soul in the paradise of
Osiris, stands on each side.
The tree is abundantly productive, and from the
upper part of it, among the branches, the goddess
Netpe rises with a tray of its fruit in one hand, and
with the other pours from a vase streams of its life-
giving water.
This water is represented by parallel zigzag lines,
similar to a well-known architectural moulding fre-
quently seen over the door-heads of Saxon and early
Norman churches, and which was no doubt originally
there introduced as symbolical of the water of bap-
tism, the initiatory sacrament of the Church, and at
one time figuratively called its gate or door, janua
ecclesia.
The Egyptians had also a baptism by water, or a
sacred function of a similar kind, administered to
adults; it is occasionally seen represented on tablets
where two priests, or divine personifications, standing
THE TREE OF LIFE. . 61
one on each side of a royal personage, pour over his
head streams of water from vases held in their hands:
there is a fragment of a large tablet in the Egyptian
Museum of the Vatican, on which this is seen, and
where the water is not represented by parallel zigzag
lines merely, but by a series of the cruit ansata joined
together in a zigzag manner. -
The crual ansata, as is well known, was the symbol
of life among the Egyptians, and is here introduced,
(the subject being on a scale sufficiently large to admit
of it) to signify the life-giving properties of this water.
In the great work of Lepsius will be found a similar
representation. The parallel zigzag lines are an ab-
breviation of the larger and more complete symbol.
In the gospel of St. John we read of our Lord
making a distinction between ordinary water and the
water which he should give of eternal life.
Thus (John iv. 18, 14) in reference to the water of
the well of Samaria, Jesus says, “Whosoever drinketh
of this water shall thirst again: but whosoever drink-
eth of the water that I shall give him shall never
thirst : but the water that I shall give him shall be in
him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.”
What our Lord meant by this water of everlasting
life is obvious from various passages of Scripture.
Thus in John vii. 37, we read:—“In the last day,
that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried,
saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and
62 THE TREE OF LIFE.
drink.” When Christ said to Peter, “Will ye also
go away?” that apostle replied, “I ord, to whom
shall we go 2 Thou hast the words of eternal life.”
(John vi. 67–8.)
So that the living water was the doctrine of eternal
life, which they who believed in Christ should receive.
The living water in the Egyptian theology would
appear to have signified the same thing ; it was, in
their doctrine, the symbolical support of eternal life to
all who received it, along with the fruit of the Tree
of Life which grew in the paradise of Osiris.
In the subject on the tomb at Thebes, given by
Rosellini, the departed are represented as in their
living bodily forms; but the symbolical figure of a
disembodied soul, a sparrow hawk with a human
head, is added to distinguish between the present life
and the future. The sparrow hawk (Falco misus),
with a human head, was the conventional manner of
showing the separated soul, especially during the
later dynasties, and at the Greek period.
The first figure in the upper row, and immediately
facing the Tree of Life, is that of Poèr, for whom
and his family, this tomb was prepared; behind him
sits his father, then his mother, whose person has
been almost obliterated along with the other figures
on this line.
On the line below are seated his ancestors, his
grandfather, grandmother, etc., as explained by the
THE TREE OF LIFE. 63
parallel columns of hieroglyphics which occupy the
background. -
Rosellini considered the goddess Netpe to be a form
of the Egyptian Rhea, the sister and wife of Sev (or
Saturn), and consequently, in mythological language,
mother of all those gods, or divine emanations, of an
inferior order, having an especial relation to our
human nature, and presiding over mundane affairs.
Her hieroglyphical name is Abyss of Heaven, and
she would here seem to personify the heavenly in-
fluence exercised on the living soul in supporting its
immortality through her ministration; hence, in the
mythological language of later times, she may be said
to have been the mother of an order of gods, under-
standing by that expression mortals raised to immor-
tality by receiving the doctrine of eternal life. (See
John x. 34, 35.)
In the museum of Egyptian antiquities at Berlin
are three stèles, or sepulchral tablets, on which the
doctrine symbolized under the figure of the Tree of
Life, and the divine sustenance which it affords, are
represented at three periods of Egyptian history
widely separated from each other.
In the earliest of these, which Dr. Lepsius found
in the village of Abousir, near the great pyramids,
the Tree of Life is represented by the palm tree, the
Phaenia, dactylifera: from the upper part of the stem
proceed two arms, one of which presents to the kneel-
64 THE TREE OF LIFE.
ing figure of a deceased person a tray of fruits; the
other pours from a vase a stream of water which the
deceased receives in his hand, and thus conveys to
his mouth. The tablet has been broken, so that very
little is seen of the figure which was behind this:
beneath the tree are two herons feeding from triangles,
or possibly they may be intended for the ibis. The
equilateral triangle is a well known symbol of the
triune Deity. We may sometimes see similar sym-
bols of birds feeding from the equilateral triangle on
Christian monuments. There is one such in the
Church of Sta. Maria, in Trastevere." The heron was
sacred to Osiris, and was, as already remarked, sym-
bolical of the first transformation of the soul in its
passage through the heavenly mansions. The ibis
was sacred to Thoth, the personified principle of
divine wisdom, and the recording spirit, in the judg-
ment day of departed souls, before the awful tribunal
of Osiris. The period of this stêle would appear to
be anterior to the fifteenth century B.C.
In the second of these three steles (which belonged
to the original collection in the museum, known as
that of Koller), the Tree of Life is the sycamore tree
(ficus-sycamorus): it has two incisions in its stem,
such as are usually made in this tree for procuring
fruit of a pleasant flavour, as the juice is exceedingly
bitter (see Jerome upon Amos viii. 14), though, ac-
* Of which the author made a sketch when last in Rome, in 1855.
THE TREE OF LIFE. 65
cording to Hasselquist, these wounds are made be-
cause the inhabitants believe that without them the
tree would not bear fruit. From the upper part of
the tree rises the bust of a female figure, Netpe, here
the goddess of the heavenly life, administering to the
deceased the water of life, and the fruit, or, as it
would seem, the bread of life, for three round sub-
stances like rolls are here represented, and are so
described by Dr. Brugsch. The deceased kneels be-
fore Osiris, the saviour and judge of the dead among
the ancient Egyptians, behind whose throne stand
JHorus, and Isis with her sister Nepthis.
Osiris wears the usual winged cap (Atf), and holds
the flail and the shepherd's crook, the symbols of his
chastening and pastoral office in the care of Souls.
. The deceased presents to him, on an altar, a lotus
flower as the symbol of the new birth (de Rougé), or
of inexhaustible life (Lepsius); it is held over a vase
of water, possibly to signify the symbolical source of
regeneration.
On the opposite side of the tree kneels a female
figure, the sister of the deceased, who is also receiving
the water of the Tree of Life.
It is not known where this stèle was found;
Dr. Lepsius, in a letter which he wrote to me on the
subject, considered it to be of the period of the nine-
teenth dynasty, or about the time of Rameses II.,
5
66 THE TREE OF LIFE.
1400 B.C. The style of it shews that it is later than
the former one. •
In the third stèle, the Tree of Life, as a tree, has
disappeared, and in its place we have a whole length
figure of the goddess Netpe, with her hieroglyphical
name, the Abyss of Heaven; she is surrounded by a
triple row of leaves, somewhat of an oval form, and
suggestive of the glory around the persons of the
Blessed Trinity, and of the Virgin Mary in Christian
iconography; in fact, but for the evidence afforded
of their meaning in the earlier examples, it might be
supposed that these leaves were intended for an aureola
of pedunculated flames.
The female character of Netpe, as a nourishing
and supporting personified principle, is prominently
marked, and she is performing the same function as .
in the other stěle, and in the painting on the tomb at
Thebes.
The soul of the deceased has the conventional bird-
like form with a human head, and is presenting an
offering of fruit and flowers to Osiris, who is here
divested of his Egyptian character, and looks like a
Greek emperor or magistrate; behind him stands a
female figure, having on her head an ostrich feather,
the symbol of truth, along with a conventional form
of the palm tree. This figure is meant for the per-
sonification, or goddess, of the west, or, as she is some-
times called, of the happy west, possibly in reference
THE TREE OF LIFE. 67
to the heavenly kingdom of Osiris; she often appears
in the hall of truth at the great scene of the final
judgment.
This stěle was obtained, by Dr. Lepsius, at Cairo;
he considers it to be of the time of the Ptolemies.
It is evidently of the Greek period, if not later; the
pure Egyptian style has disappeared, although the
doctrine remains the same, but is not so simply ex-
pressed. We here see that what, probably, was at
first, simply a tree, and afterwards became a tree with
a pair of arms, has been changed into a whole figure
by progressive stages; the symbol has become trans-
formed into an idol, and thereby the primitive sim-
plicity of the doctrine has been deteriorated in the
manner of its representation.
In the earliest of these three stèles in the Berlin
Museum, it is worthy of notice, that the sacred tree,
the Tree of Life, should be represented by the date
palm—Phoenia dactylifera. From the period as-
signed by Dr. Lepsius to the second and less ancient
stèle, it is extremely probable that the first, judging
by its style alone, cannot be later than the sixteenth
century B.C., or contemporaneous with the earliest
portions of the Pentateuch; and, taking into con-
sideration the greater simplicity of representation in
reference to doctrine, may be much older.
The date palm was at one time the sacred tree of
lower Egypt, and represents, phonetically, surmounted
68 THE TREE OF LIFE.
by the ostrich feather, the Land of the West, or the
happy West; as such it occurs on the zodiac of Den-
dera. But, as a symbolical and sacred tree, its mean-
ing is more recondite.
There is no tribe of trees so useful and important
to man as the palm tribe, none which furnishes him
with so many necessaries of life, or whose growth is
more beautiful and majestic; and of all the palms,
that which from primitive times, and in the primeval
seat of our race, has been the most prized, and re-
garded as indicative of the divine beneficence, is the
date palm. *
A conventional form of the palm tree occurs on the
Nineveh tablets, surrounded by an enclosure of pal-
mettes, and attended by winged deities, or ministers
holding the pine-cone symbol of life, which, in AS-
syrian sculpture, takes the place of the cruz anSata in
the hands of the Egyptian deities.
The palmette passed from the Assyrians to the
Greeks, and formed the crowning ornament of their
most beautiful temples. It appears also to have been
a symbol among the Etruscans, and, together with
the palm tree, will be found on Etruscan sacred
utensils.
Among the Jews, the date palm would seem to
have had a certain typical signification; it was
largely introduced in the decorations of Solomon’s
temple, being represented on the walls along with
THE TREE OF LIFE. 69
the cherubim, and also on the furniture and vessels
of the temple (1 Kings vi. 29, 32, 35; vii. 36).
In the song of Solomon, which theologians regard
as significant of the love of the Church for Christ,
the Spouse of the Church is spoken of as the palm
tree. “I said, I will go up to the palm tree, I will
take hold of the boughs thereof.” (Solom. Song vii. 8).
The palm tree is also in Scripture a favourite simile
for the righteous, who are said to flourish like the
palm tree. (Psalm xcii., 12).
The Tree of Life mentioned in the second chapter
of Genesis v. 9, has always been understood as the
palm tree—the date palm—Phoenia, dactylifera.
In the last chapter of the Apocalypse there is a
reference to the palm tree, as the Tree of Life in the
heavenly Jerusalem. St. John thus describes the
water of life and the Tree of Life: “And he showed
me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, pro-
ceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.
In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of
the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve
manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month:
and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the
nations.” (Rev. xxii. 1, 2).
The palm tree was popularly believed to put forth
a shoot every month, and hence became, at the close
of the year, a symbol of it; and was the origin of the
Christmas tree, so popular with the Germans, but de-
70 THE TREE OF LIFE.
1ived originally from Egypt. The evangelist would
also seem to signify, that this Tree of Life was the
gospel tree of redemption, of which the twelve apostles
were the exponents, and their healing doctrine its
leaves. It is well known that the leaves of the palm
tree were, at one time, used for writing on (Pliny).
How far the house of the Lord which Solomon built
was intended to prefigure the heavenly paradise with
trees of righteousness and cherubim, may be a matter
of opinion ; but it would certainly appear that the
palm tree was at this time, and most probably had
been ever since the Exodus, regarded by the Jews as
the most sacred of trees, and held to be typical of the
Tree of Life in its most recondite meaning.
The palm tree, together with the persica (peach
tree), occur in later representations of the paradise of
Osiris, along with the Christian symbols of blessed
souls, doves and peacocks."
In Christian symbolism the Tree of Life is the date
palm, and souls are represented, commonly, as doves,
more rarely as peacocks.
In the Apsides of the Roman Basilicae we frequently
see the date palm in mosaic work on each side of a
group of figures, consisting of the Saviour seated
1 There was a fresco of this subject on the wall of a small atrium at
Pompeii, in a house near the gate; in 1812 Francesco Morelli made a
drawing of it. An engraving from it, of which the author possesses
a copy, was published at Naples in 1833. The sacred heron occurs
here along with doves and peacocks, and in the distance are the islands
of the blessed.
THE TREE OF LIFE. 71
between the four evangelists or other saints; and on
one of these palm trees is very commonly perched a
phoenix with a glory of seven rays. There is a good
example of this in the Church of the Sts. Cosma and
Damiano; the phoenix with the glory symbolizes the
resurrection to eternal life, and is placed on the palm
tree as the symbolical support of that life.
The phoenix was, in this sense, a very ancient
mythical symbol. Dante alludes to it, Inf. xxiv.,
106-8. -
“Cosi per li gran savi si confessa,
Che la Fenice muore e poirinasce,
Quando al cinquecentesimo anno appressa.”
Ovid (“Metamorphoses,” lib. xv., v. 392 et seq.) as-
sociates this fabulous bird with the palm tree, as pre-
paring its funeral nest among the branches, “tremu-
laeque cacumine palmae,” from whence, on its death,
another little phoenix rises up."
Occasionally, a palm tree is placed between each
pair of holy persons figured on these apsides.
In the Church of St. John Lateran, at Rome, there
is represented in the apsis a sacred mound, from the
sides of which flow four streams, the rivers of para-
dise, or the four gospel streams of living water.
1 It is a doubtful point whether the tree, Phaenix dactylifera, gave
name to the bird, or the mythical bird to the tree; possibly the well
known fact that, when an aged female palm tree was burnt down to
the roots, a new tree sprang up amid the ashes of the old one, may
have been the origin of the fable. See C. Plinii Secundi Naturalis
Historiae, lib. xiii., c. 9.
72 THE TREE OF LIFE.
Within this mound, as seen in section, is an enclo-
sure, with an entrance to it, guarded by an angel
holding a drawn sword ; behind him, and in the
centre of the enclosure, is a palm tree, and on it is
perched a phoenix with a glory of rays. At one side
of the tree stands a venerable old man, on the other
side a younger one, each has a glory; these figures
are intended for the Father and the Son, and the
palm tree between them is the Tree of Life in the
midst of the garden.
On the top of the mound, and planted in the foun-
tain of water from whence the four streams gush
forth, is a lofty, articulated, and gemmed cross, bathed
in beams of light from the radiant body of a dove, the
Holy Ghost, hovering over it.
What the Tree of Life was to the first covenanted
man in the primitive paradise, the cross planted on
the hill of paradise is thus shewn to be to the second,
with this difference, that the tree, after the fall, was
no longer accessible to man in his state of condem-
nation, and is represented fenced about and guarded
from the world as a sacred mystery; but the cross is
free to all, placed upon a hill, and resplendent in
light.
Frequently, instead of a cross on the mound
of paradise, with its four streams of living water,
there is the figure of a lamb, as Christ, bearing
a cross, with the twelve apostles, as sheep standing
THE TREE OF LIFE. 73
on each side. (See the church of Sts. Cosma and
Damiano.")
In Christian iconography, Christ and the cross are
regarded as having the same meaning; and when the
symbolical lamb, as the Lamb of God, supports a
cross, it becomes the same as Christ.
That the divine source of life in Christ was con-
sidered identical with that which was in the Tree of
Tife, the symbolical palm tree, is well shown by the
illuminated frontispiece to an Evangelium in the
library of the British Museum, ascribed to the eighth
century, but probably somewhat later.
In this the symbols of the four Evangelists, the
angel, the winged lion, the ov, and the eagle, placed
over four columns of lessons from their gospels, are
shown looking up to a palm tree, which rises from
the centre over the columns, bearing flowers and fruit.
In the stem of this tree are two incisions, as on the
stem of the sycamore tree in the second of the Egyp-
tian stéles, and on the top of the tree is planted a
cross, having suspended from its arms the Greek
letters Alpha and Omega. The incisions in the stem
have probably an intended reference to the wounds
of Christ, and the tree and the cross evidently signify
the same thing—Christ the Tree of eternal Life to all
who come unto him.
* These, and the other examples noticed of Christian symbolism, are
from the personal observations of the author. -
74 THE TREE OF LIFE.
As the Tree of eternal Life, Christ furnishes to
faithful souls the food of immortality.
This is the subject most frequently found symbol-
ized on early Christian sepulchral tablets and monu-
ments—even on the rudest of them, showing how
universal was this sentiment. There is a series of
these in the Musée Lapidaire at Lyons.
Departed Christian souls, as before remarked, are
usually symbolized as doves, more rarely as peacocks.
In St. Clemente at Rome, in the apsis, is a cross
in mosaic, on which are represented twelve doves,
signifying the twelve apostles united to, or having
their life in, Christ. On a sarcophagus in the Museum
of the Lateran are two doves on a cross, surmounted
by the monogram of Christ within a wreath. In the
Museo Archivescovile at Ravenna is a sarcophagus
bearing the monogram of Christ, the diagonal cross
with the Greek rho passing through the centre, and
there is a peacock and a palm tree on each side.
M. Comarmond, the conservator of the Museum
at Lyons, states, in his illustrated catalogue, that the
figure of a peacock more rarely accompanies Christian
inscriptions than the figure of a dove; and remarks
that S. Augustin affirms the Christians considered it
as a symbol of the resurrection of the body, because
the flesh of it was thought to be incorruptible.
In one of the compartments of a very interesting
ivory tabernacle in the sacristy of the cathedral at
THE TREE OF LIFE. 75
Sens, of about the eleventh or twelfth century, two
peacocks are put for the souls of Christian saints,
having each a palm branch attached to its neck; be.
tween them is placed a pine cone. In the cathedral:
of Vienne in Dauphiné, there is a sarcophagus of the
same period, on which are represented two peacocks
feeding on the bunches of grapes that grow upon a
vine planted in a sacramental vase.
On the tablets in the Museum of Lyons, however,
the birds are simply birds; they have no distinctive
character, and the trees are simply trees, very rude
scratches—a tree is placed between two birds; but
on some of these tablets, instead of a tree, there is an
equally rude monogram of Christ with birds pecking
at it. -
Occasionally, but this is rare, the griffin takes the
place of the peacock. On a tablet in St. Mark's at
Venice, of which a cast is in the Crystal Palace, and
another in the Architectural Museum at South Ken-
sington, two griffins are represented feeding on a vine
that grows in a tripartite form out of a vase; and that
there might be no mistake as to what this vase is
meant to contain—the Eucharistic wine—the Thyrsus
of Bacchus is placed within it. The fact of the pine
cone taking the place of the cross and of the Tree of
Life, shows the universal character of Christian sym-
bolism, and its oriental origin. The griffin, however,
which among the Gentiles was a symbol of Apollo,
76 THE TREE OF LIFE,
whose car we may sometimes see drawn by griffins,
was properly the symbol of Christ, and in this sense
is introduced by Dante in the procession of the
church—
“la fiera
Ch’é sola una persona in duo nature.”
Purg. xxxi., v. 80–1.
The eagle's head and wings represent the Divine
nature; the lion’s body, the human nature. On our
Nineveh monuments, the pine cones in the hands
of the winged figures standing beside the sacred tree,
are held towards the tree, as having a significant
connection with it. The pine cone, as before stated,
is synonymous with the cruz-ansata, and is presented
in the same way." ; -
On the baptismal font of Winchester Cathedral,
believed to be of the eleventh century, two doves are
represented approaching to drink out of a vase, in
which is planted a jewelled cross; here the cross
takes the place of the Thyrsus in the tablet at Venice.
On the same font are also two doves pecking at a
bunch of grapes—faithful souls feeding on Christ.
In the arms impaled on the money of Gregory XVI,
two birds are approaching to drink out of the sacra-
mental cup, over which is the star of Bethlehem.
1 Bonomi's Nineveh, p. 158. Flame was regarded as the sacred
symbol of the Divine presence, and the soul being considered of the
nature of etherial fire, the inflammable matter of the pine cone may
have suggested it as a symbol of the Divine life in man.
THE TREE OF LIFE. 77
Our blessed Lord called himself the vine; the juice
of the fruit of the vine was his mystical blood, and
the fruit would therefore represent his body. But
our Lord declared his body to be also the bread of
life, of which whosoever eateth should live for ever;
this also has given rise to symbolical representations
of the bread of life, as small round rolls or cakes with
a cross upon them ; we may see such on tablets in the
Christian Museum of the Vatican, and occasionally
also on sarcophagi.
In the Lateran Museum there is a sarcophagus on
which sheep are represented as feeding on certain
round, ring-shaped substances, resembling those breads
that in Italy are called ciambelle, and which are no
doubt intended for such; and that it might be evident
what these breads mean, that they are the fruit of the
Tree of Life, of the symbolical palm tree, one of them
is placed on the top of a palm tree rudely repre-
sented at the side. In the cathedral of Ravenna
there is a sarcophagus on which the meaning of these
round ring-shaped breads is also shown, both in re-
ference to our Lord and to the palm tree. Christ,
without a glory, is seated between two disciples, who
present on a corporas, spread over their hands, two of
these breads, significant of the support of life without
end; beyond them are two palm trees.
Among the Gentiles, the palm branch was an em-
blem of victory—it is given to Christian martyrs as
78 THE TREE OF LIFE.
significant of their triumph in the faith, and their
victory over death; but there is another motive for
this, it shows their relation to Christ, the captain of
their salvation, their Tree of Life, their symbolical
palm tree. In virtue of this relation, they become, in
figurative language, trees of righteousness, and have
sometimes been thus represented. Bosio, in his Roma
Sotterranea, gives an engraving of a sarcophagus on
which two human figures are planted as trees, their
trunks being surmounted with the foliage of the palm
tree. Christ, the cross, the Tree of Life, and the palm
tree are thus identified in meaning. In tree crosses
they became identical also in form; these, however,
were of later introduction, Agincourt has an engrav-
ing of one of the fifteenth century, or a little earlier
—it was taken from a fresco which he found on the
wall of an old convent near St. Agnese, beyond the
walls of Rome. In this subject Christ is nailed to a
tree, apparently intended for a palm tree, or the
conventional form of one. This, and probably all
tree crosses, may have a reference to that beautiful
religious fable, not without a meaning, which was
current in the Middle Ages, that the cross of Christ
had been made from the wood of the tree originally
a slip cut from the Tree of Life, which, by the
favour of the angel who guarded it, Seth was privi-
leged to take and plant in the world. This legend is
related by M. Didron. f
THE TREE OF LIFE. 79
In the succeeding essay it will be shewn that Sacred
Trees are met with among all ancient nations, from
China to Scandinavia—the palm, the sycamore, the
fig tree, the oak, the ash, and some others which
might be mentioned; a divine influence was believed
to be present about them; in some instances God
himself was imagined to inhabit them, and they were
held in devout veneration, or worshipped with re-
ligious awe.
In the “Tree of Life” of the Egyptians, we have
perhaps the earliest, certainly the most complete and
consistent representation of this most ancient and
seemingly universal symbol—the “Tree of Life,” in
the midst of Paradise, furnishing the divine support
of immortality.
And what does this tree mean P. In the Scriptures
we read that “man doth not live by bread alone, but
by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of
God.” Here we have a key to the symbolical teach-
ing, itself symbolically explained. The divine word
is the support of the divine life; they who live by
it shall never die. “Whoso receiveth me and my
word,” saith our Lord, “I will raise him up again at
the last day.” We have the authority of St. Au-
gustine, that the Egyptians firmly believed in a re-
surrection from the dead, and their sacred monu-
ments show that they did so, at least during one
period of their highly-civilized history.
80 THE TREE OF LIFE.
The “Bread of Life,” and the fruit of the “Tree
of Life,” and the “Water of Life,” are all significant
of one and the same thing—the divine nourishment
of the soul unto everlasting life. And this primitive
doctrine, which has never changed, is, it would seem,
dimly, yet not obscurely, traceable among the Gentile
nations in the religious associations of ideas symbol-
ized by their sacred trees.
[This Essay, when read before the Royal Society of Literature in
1859, was fully illustrated by a series of original drawings made by
the author in Italy, Germany, and elsewhere. It was not thought
desirable to reproduce any of them here without giving the whole.]
S.A. C. R. E. D. T. R. E. E.S.
THIS Essay on “Sacred Trees” was begun in 1856 during an excur-
sion to Denmark and Sweden to examine into the remains of Scandi-
navian Mythology and Antiquities. It was finished in the following
year, chiefly from gatherings in that paradise of books—the Library
of the British Museum. It is less the result of personal observation
than of literary research, and forms the continuation of the Art
History of the Tree of Life. Having been written, however, as a
separate Essay, some repetition of what had there been stated became
unavoidable. It was printed in “The Journal of Sacred Literature”
for September, 1862. A few alterations and additions have since been
introduced.
SACRED TREES.
AMONG the Egyptians, from the earliest period of
their monumental history to the latest, we find re-
presented on Tombs and Stěles the figure of a Sacred
Tree, from which, departed souls, in human form,
receive the nourishment of everlasting life.
The monuments of the ancient Assyrians also show
a Sacred Tree symbolical of the divine influence of
the life-giving Deity. So also do those of the ancient
Persians, and it was preserved by them, almost as
represented on the Assyrian monuments, until the
invasion of the Arabs.
The Hebrews had a Sacred Tree which figured in
their temple architecture along with the Cherubim;
it was the same sort of tree as that which had pre-
viously been in use among the Egyptians, and was
subsequently, in a conventional form, adopted by the
Assyrians and Persians, and eventually by the Chris-
tians, who introduced it in the mosaics of their early
churches associated with their most sacred rites. This
tree, which occurs also as a religious symbol on
Etruscan remains, and was abbreviated by the Greeks
84 SACRET) TREES.
into a familiar ornament of their temple architecture,
was the date palm, Phoenia, dactylifera.
But although the earliest known form of the Tree
of Life on Egyptian monuments is the date palm, at
a later period the sycamore fig-tree, the ficus syca-
morus, was represented instead, and eventually even
this disappeared, at least in some instances, and a
female personification came in its place; but the
meaning was the same, the form only was altered.
Besides the monumental evidence thus furnished of
a Sacred Tree, a Tree of Life, there is an historical and
traditional evidence of the same thing, found in the
early literature of various nations, in their customs,
and popular usages.
For although, in the migrations of the human race,
the Sacred Tree underwent changes, in accordance
with new localities, yet the meaning of it, and the
religious notions associated with it, retained their
primitive character; so much so, that even in recent
times, and in Christian countries, it has been difficult
entirely to eradicate from the popular mind the devo-
tional feeling with which it was regarded.
Thus the Sacred Tree became the oak, the ash, the
fig-tree, the plane tree, the pine; and in the venera-
tion paid to trees, both in Europe and in Asia,
under the supposition that those of beautiful growth
were more especially the favourites of deity, and the
haunts of blessed spirits, or even of God himself,
SACRED TREES. 85
which notion the Bible in some places countenances,
any tree pre-eminently distinguished by its majesty
and grace became the object of religious reverence.
There might be an innate appreciation of the beau-
tiful and the grand in this impression, conjoined
with the conception of a more sublime truth, and the
first principles of a natural theology; but in most
instances, it would appear rather to have been the
result of an ancient and primitive symbolical worship,
at one time universally prevalent.
The most generally received symbol of life is a
tree, as also the most appropriate; and as we re-
cognize two different forms of life, a spiritual life,
the life of the soul, and a physical life, the life of the
body, so these may be represented either by two
trees, as sometimes found, or in reference to universal
life, by one tree alone.
On the zodiac of Dendera, preserved in the national
library at Paris, are two symbolical trees placed op-
posite to each other, phonetically they stand for the
west and the east, but symbolically they appear to
signify much more. The west was regarded as the
land of truth and of civilized religion; it was Egypt
in contradistinction to India and China, where a
worship of the vital force, as manifested in nature,
had taken the place of a more spiritual doctrine. In
the first of these symbols we have the palm tree, the
early sacred tree of Egypt, surmounted by the ostrich
86 SACRED TREES.
feather, the symbol of truth; in the second we have
a tree putting forth a pair of leaves, and surmounted
by the conventional Siva symbols, indicating the
generative force of nature manifested in the life of
plants and animals."
THE SACRED ASEI.
As a symbolical tree of universal life, the ash
$/ggdrasill, the mundane tree of the Scandinavian
mythology, claims the pre-eminence. It is described
in, the Eddas as the greatest and best of trees. Its
triple root reaches to the mythic regions of the frost-
giants and the AEsir, and penetrates to the nebulous
Niflheim. Its majestic stem overtops the heavens,
and its branches fill the world. It is sprinkled with
the purest water, whence is the dew that falls in the
dales, and its life-giving energy is diffused throughout
all nature.
At its foot is the Undar fountain, where sit the
three Norns, or Fates—time past, time present, and
time to come; these give Runic characters and laws
to men, and fix their destinies. Here is the most
holy of all places, where the gods assemble daily in
council, with All-Father at their head.
* These symbols, as here represented, are a crescent-shaped cavity
resting on a rectangular base, and from which rises an elongated cone.
THE SACRED ASH. - 87
These three Norns have a certain analogy to the
three mythic Persian destinies seated by the foun-
tain of perennial life; and the tree itself is evidently
a symbol of that inscrutable power which is the life
of all things; thus representing, under an arborescent
form, the most ancient theory of nature, analogous to
that personified in the Indian Parvati, the goddess
of life and reproduction, also in the Egyptian Isis, and
in the figure so frequently met with in the museums
of Italy, called “Diana of the Ephesians,” a variety
of the Indian Maya."
In the Chinese sacred books “the Taou (the divine
reason, or wisdom, but here put for the Deity) pre-
serves the heavens and supports the earth; he is so
high as not to be reached, so deep as not to be fol-
lowed, so immense as to contain the whole universe,
and yet he penetrates into the minutest things.”
* According to the Indian myths, the Trimourti is sometimes figured
as a tree with three branches, each of which is radiant with a central
sun. How fully the idea of a tree pervaded the metaphysical con-
ceptions of the Hindus is shown in the following passage from M.
Guiniaut's Religions de l’Antiquité, vol. i., p. 147, “Quand se_furent
formés les quatorze mondes avec l’axe quiles traverse, et audessous
le mont Calaya, alors parut sur le sommet de ce dernier le triangle,
Yoni, et dans l’Yoni le Lingam, ou Siva Lingam. , Ce Lingam
(arbre de vie) avait trois écorses: la première et la plus extérieure
était Brahmā, celle du milieu Vishnow, la troisième et la plus tendre
Siva ; et, quand le trois dieux se furent détachés, il ne resta plus dans
le triangle que la tige nue; désormais sous le garde de Siva.”
2 See a dissertation on the antiquity of China in “A Complete View
of the Chinese Empire.” London 1798. “The book See-ki says—‘The
Emperor formerly made a solemn sacrifice every three years to the
spirit TRINITY and UNITY, Chin-san-ye.” The Taou-tse has the
following text:—“Taou is one by nature. The first begot the second,
two produced the third, and by three all things were created.’”—Ibid.
88 SACRED THEES.
The sacred ash of the Scandinavians corresponds, as
a symbol, with the Chinese Taou,
THE SACRED OAK.
Among the Teutonic race, the oak was the sacred
tree, as also among the Kelts, and the primitive
inhabitants of Palestine, the Hebrew patriarchs, and
the early Greeks.
The Keltic magi, or Druids, the priests of the re-
ligion of the oak (deru), regarded this tree as sym-
bolical, or even representative, of the Almighty
Father. Under it was the sanctum ; here they
performed their most solemn rites, and no sacrifice
could be offered up until the leaves of this tree, as a
sort of propitiation, had been strewed upon the altar.
In their veneration for the oak, the fiebrew
patriarchs so much resembled the Druids, that the
religion of the oak among the latter has been ascribed
to a more ancient practice of it among the former."
We read in Genesis (xii. 6, 7) that when Abraham
entered the land of Canaan, God appeared to him
1 See Dickenson’s dissertation, De Origine Druidium, contained in
his learned little volume, printed at Oxford in 1655, where we read,
“Porró igitur quaeras unde querna istaec religio nata est? Nimirum é
quercubus Mamrae: sub quibus, olim viri sanctissimi (penes quos, tum
rei divinae faciendae, tum justitiae administrandae cura fuit) religiosis-
simé degebant: quarum umbra simul Abrahamae domicilium, Deoque
templum praebuit,” p. 190. Dr. Stukeley, who wrote about a century
after, adopted this opinion.
THE SACRED OAK. 89
wnder an oak, the oak of Moreh," to promise the pos-
session of the country to his posterity; and also that
the Lord appeared to Abraham in the oaks, or at the
oak of Mamre, as it is in the Hebrew, but not in our
translation (Gen. xviii. 1). It was under an oak, the
oak by Sichem, that Jacob buried, as in a consecrated
place, the images and earrings of his household, for-
feited to God (Gen. xxxv. 4). That this was a holy
place is shewn by Joshua here setting up a stone of
memorial under the oak which was in the sanctuary
of the Lord, thus the Hebrew and the Vulgate “quae
erat in sanctuario Domini” (Joshua xxiv. 26). It
was also under an oak that the angel, or as some
understand, and the Vulgate more correctly renders
it, God himself conversed in a visible form with
Gideon (Judges vi. 11–21).
It would appear, therefore, that the oak, in Pales-
tine, was regarded as the emblem of a divine covenant,
and indicated the religious appropriation of any stone
monument erected beneath it—and that it was also
symbolical of the divine presence, possibly from asso-
ciation. (See Kitto’s “History of Palestine,” vol. i.,
p. 360).
It is worthy of remark that the same Hebrew word
(nºs) which signifies oak means an oath also, and
In our version, the word rendered “plain” should be oak.
2 “Scripsit quoquë omnia verba haec in volumine legis Domini: et
tulit lapidem, posuitgue eum subter quercum qual erat in Sanctuario
Domini.”
90 SACRED THEES.
that the root of this word is (bs) mighty, or strong,
the origin of the name of the Deity in many ancient
languages."
Among the Greeks, the oak of Dodona was the seat
of the oldest Hellenic oracle, whose priests sent forth
their declarations on its leaves. The oak thus dis-
tinguished, on the shores of the Mediterranean, was
the Quercus Ilea: ; in northern regions, and in colder
climates, the Quercus Robur.
The monarch of trees in our northern flora, as in-
dicative of living strength and power, was an appro-
priate symbol of the living God, but in process of
time, the Druids converted this symbol into an inci-
pient idol.
The boughs were cut off, and two of the larger ones
being fixed at right angles into the stem, the form of
a cross was produced, or a figure having a rude sem-
blance to a man; on the top of this was inscribed
* Consult on this subject Bates's Critica Hebraea, Gousset's Hebrew
Lea icon, Parkhurst, etc., b's; ºs, Al or Ail, (for the jod is here
servile, and may be dropped or not) is GoD and the root word of GoD,
in its various forms, significant of power and might. The word, whether
written pR or ºx or pºss or bººk, is applied to persons and creatures
which have power or virtue in them, or are robust and strong. Jacob
Gousset observes “ps: Dei nomen est, et solet suminon ut simplex ejus
designatio, sed quasi respiceret aliquid speciale attributum, nempe for-
titudinem vel robur, et idcirco vertitur Deus fortis, Scilicetºs deducia
rad: 2"s.” ps, according to Parkhurst, “expresses the omnipresence
of God, i.e., the universal extension;” though he will not presume to say
“of his substance,” but “of his knowledge and power,” according to
the awful question in Jer. xxiii. 24, “Do not I fill heaven and earth
saith Jehovah.” See 1 Kings viii. 27; Psalm crxxix. 7–12; also
Milton, Pard, Lost, viii. 168–9; and Newton’s Scholium to the Principia.
THE SACRED OAK. 91
THAU (0éog), and on the arms the Keltic Trinity,
HESUS, BELENUs, and THARAMIs, a triad correspond-
ing, apparently, with the Scandinavian Trinity, ODIN,
BALDER, and THOR. Hesus, or Esus, was the mighty
one; Belenus (Bel or Baal) the Lord, corresponded
to Apollo; and Tharamis was the power of the mov-
ing heavens, or he who directs the atmospheric phe-
nomena, rain, wind, thunder, etc., the same as Thor,
the thunderer, and the Jove of the Greeks.
The conquests of the Keltic race were pre-historic ;
but the name Hesus, as a god of war and leader of a
conquering race, is sufficiently characteristic, if the
derivation of Middleton be correct, that it was from
Eas or Es, a torrent or cataract, to which the Romans
added the termination us, thus making Esus, or
IIesus, the irresistible. Such also was Odin, the god
of battles, to the conquering race of Scandinavia; and
such must needs be the Deity worshipped by nations
whom the spirit of conquest urges to the acquisition
of territory, for if they put their trust in any God at
all, it is in one who is with them, and helps them
to overthrow their enemies. Jehovah is thus intro-
duced in the sacred books of the Jews, and thus
the God of the Assyrians is figured on the bas-reliefs
from Nimroud. Belenus, like Balder, is a beneficent
deity, delighting in sunshine, and in doing good; but
the three are to be considered only as different forms,
or acts, of the One, who in the sunbeam is Balder,
92 SACRED TEEES.
rejoicing the heart; in the thunder is Thor, whose
word is “like a hammer that breaketh the rock in
pieces" (Jer. xxiii. 29); and who, when he over-
throweth his enemies, is Odin, or Mars.
In Germany, as in England, the oak was long re-
garded as a sacred tree; solemn assemblies were held
beneath it, and decrees were often dated “sub quer-
cibus,” or “sub annosa quercu.” Shakespeare men-
tions the oak as sacred to Jove: *
In later times, or perhaps even then, oaks were
synonymous with “gospel trees.” Herrick, in his
Resperides, has an allusion to this—
“Dearest bring me under that holy-oke, or gospel tree,
Where (though thou see'st not) thou may'st think on me,
When thou yearly go'st processioning.”
Holy-oak was still a household word in our language
during the last century.
THE MISTLETOE.
But however sacred the oak may have been
among the Keltic nations, the mistletoe that grew
upon the oak would seem to have been still more
so. The Persians and Massagetae, no less than the
Druids, are said by Borlase, to have regarded the
* See Keysley's Antiquitates Septentrionales et Celtica.
2 “And rifted Jove's stout oak
With his own bolt.” Temp. v. i.
THE MISTLETOE. 93
mistletoe, the “all-heal” of our pagan ancestors, as
something divine. Virgil describes it as the golden
branch.
“Aureus et foliis et lento vimine ramus
Junoni inferna dictus sacer. . .”
growing on the tree of deep shade, Jupiter's sacred
oak, and alone affording a safe passport to the in-
fernal regions. Charon, when he saw it, became
silent, for it betokened an authority higher than his
own, and with inward admiration he regarded this
“venerabile donum,” as though it had foreshadowed
the expectancy of all nations, “ longo post tempore
visum.”
The Druids gathered the sacred mistletoe of the
oak at yule tide; this annual ceremony was a very
high festival, and was accompanied with sacrifices
and a sacred banquet. -
The circumstance of the mistletoe being found
growing on the oak was that which gave it value,
showing that God had accepted it. It was cut with
a golden sickle, and received with extreme reverence
on a white cloth; extraordinary life-giving powers
were ascribed to it, and great importance was
attached to obtaining a portion of it. That all
this had a meaning there can be no doubt. The
learned and ingenious Dr. Stukeley" states that it
* Medallic History of Marcus Aurelius Valerius Carausius.
94 SACRED TREES.
was laid on their altars as an emblem of the saluti-
ferous advent of Messiah, and adds that the custom of
the Druids was still in his time preserved in the
north, “and was lately at York: on the eve of
Christmas-day they carry mistletoe to the high altar
of the cathedral, and proclaim a public and universal
liberty, pardon, and freedom to all sorts of inferior
and even wicked people, at the gates of the city to-
wards the four quarters of heaven.” Mistletoe still
retains a popular place in our Christmas festivities,
though its sacred meaning has been forgotten.
The learned Warburton was of opinion that Virgil,
in the story of the descent of Æneas to the infernal
regions, intended to convey to the reader a descrip-
tion of the Eleusinian mysteries, derived from those of
Isis in which was carried a golden branch. Severus
states that many doctrines in the Greek mysteries
were delivered in the profound learning of the Egyp-
tians. Virgil describes Æneas as being instructed in
the Orphic theology of an omnipresent universal
mind, which is the life of all things.
“Principio coelum ac terras, camposque liquentes,
Lucentemque globum Lunae, Titaniaque Astra,
Spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus
Mens agitat molem, et magnose corpore miscet.
Inde hominum pecudumque genus, vitaeque volantum,
Et quae marmoreo fert monstra sub aquore pontus. *
AEn. I. vi. 724–9.
This primitive theology, found no less in Sacred
CHRISTMAS TREE. 95
than in profane writers, dressed up in the fantastic
imagery of the north, became the pictorial Scandi-
navian myth, known as the ash &ggdrasill, or the
tree of universal life. g
The rites which Virgil relates to have been per-
formed by Æneas in honour of Proserpine, and to
procure her favour, are considered, by many, to have
been similar to those practised by the Druids. And
we have the authority of Strabo for the fact, that
there was an island near Britain, supposed to be
Anglesea, where the same rites were performed to
Ceres and Proserpine, as were used in Samothrace,
so celebrated for the sanctity of its asylum, and the
mysterious worship of the Cabiri.
CHRISTMAS TREE.
The Christmas-tree, or Christbaum of our German
neighbours, has by some been regarded as the
modern diminutive of the Scandinavian yºgdrasill,
but the birth-place of the Christmas-tree is Egypt,
and its origin is long anterior to the Christian era.
It was a popular notion that the palm-tree put
forth a shoot every month, and a spray of this
tree, with twelve shoots on it, was used in Egypt,
at the time of the winter solstice, as a symbol
of the year completed. Egyptian associations are
96 SACRED TREES.
still mingled with the * of the Christmas-tree;
there are as many pyramids as trees used in Ger-
many, in the celebration of Christmas, by those whose
means do not admit of purchasing trees and their
concomitant tapers."
In the vision of St. John, the tree beheld growing
by the side of running water, and which bore twelve
manner of fruits, yielding her fruit every month, and
whose leaves were for the healing of the nations, was
evidently meant for the date palm, the leaves of
which, when blanched, were used for writing on.
Trees have always been favourite images with
prophets and poets. In the sacred writings they are
put for nations and for persons—thus the prophet
Ezekiel (xxxi. 3, 8, 9) speaking of the Assyrians and
their king, says, “The Assyrian was a cedar in Le-
banon with fair branches, the cedars in the garden
of God could not hide him, the fir-trees were not
like his boughs, and the chesnut-trees were not like
his branches; nor any tree in the garden of God
was like unto him in his beauty. I have made him
fair by the multitude of his branches; so that all the
trees of Eden that were in the garden of God envied
him.”
We here have the authority of a prophet of Israel,
that by the garden of God, or Eden, is meant the
populous and fertile country of the dominant oriental
1 See a letter from Berlin in The Times, Dec. 25th, 1855.
OF SACRED GROVES. 97
nations, who were the trees in that garden, and their
families and populations, the branches and leaves.
Isaiah (lxi. 3) speaks of “Trees of righteousness,
the planting of the Lord that he might be glorified,”
And St. Jerome, in his third homily on the Canticles,
says “Omnes igitur homines, arbores dicuntur, sive
bonae, sive malae.”
Under the form of a tree, Nebuchadnezzar, king of
Babylon, is figured to himself in his dream (Dan. iv.
10–12); and it was also the favourite figure used by
our Lord when addressing himself to men in refer-
ence to their works.
Christ also represents himself as a tree “I am the
vine, ye are the branches;” and it is to a tree—the
Cross of Christ—that the Christian looks up for his
salvation, the Cross being identified with him who
suffered on it.
OF SACRED GROVES.
Most nations, if not all, would appear, at some
time or other, to have had a sacred tree, and from
the worship of sacred trees, to have proceeded to
the adoration of idols formed from their wood. This
was the opinion of Winckelmann and Caylus, it was
also held by Pausanias, and is alluded to in the Bible.
(Isaiah xl. 20.)
98 SACRED TREES.
The first temple mentioned in Bible history is a
grove which Abraham planted when he settled for a
time at Beersheba, and there called on the name of
the Lord (Gen. xxi. 33).
Dr. Stukeley, in the first of his discourses on the
vegetable kingdom, delivered in St. Leonard's Church
on Whit-Sunday, 1760, speaks of this temple as “that
famous oak grove of Beersheba, planted by the illus-
trious prophet and first Druid ABRAHAM : and from
whom our celebrated British Druids came, who were of
the same patriarchal reformed religion, and brought
the use of sacred groves to Britain.”
The use, however, of groves for religious purposes,
and of stones of covenant connected with trees, did
not originate with Abraham, who in planting a
grove and there calling on the name of the Lord,
only followed the established usage of countries
which either had not, with the Egyptians, arrived at
the era of architecture, or whose religious notions did
not permit them to worship the Deity in temples
made with hands.
Among the Kelts, as also among the Germans and
the Scandinavians, groves consecrated by the rever-
1 See Palaeographia Sacra. Dr. Stukeley in his Hescol, sive Origines
Brittanica, having ascertained, as he tells us, that the British were of
oriental extraction, and that the Druids, their priests, were of the first
and patriarchal religion, adds, “in the course of my studies I made
large researches into the particulars of that first religion which I found
to be the same as Christianity.” -
OF SACRED GROVES. 99
^,
ence of ages, and by the continuance of primitive
usages, were the only public places of worship re-
sorted to. So universally, in fact, were groves and
Woods dedicated to religious purposes, that among
the Greek and Latin writers the words āAaos and
lucus (a grove) imply consecration.
From the belief which prevailed in the occasional
visible presence of divine beings, and their reported
apparition beneath trees, in an age when it was held
that angels and men might familiarly converse to-
gether, came, in all probability, the custom of con-
sulting oracles beneath trees, as also the worship still
associated with them in the east : and to this source
may be traced the superstitious notion touching the
spirits that inhabit trees, and their successors, the
sprightly fairies, who sometimes dance around them.
IPliny remarks' that even in his time the rustics,
observing ancient usages, dedicated to the deity any
tree of pre-eminent beauty or excellence. In Herod-
otus” we read that Xerxes, proceeding to Sardis
with his army, met by the way with a plane-tree,
which, on account of its beauty, he presented with
an offering of golden ornaments, and left a guard of
honour to protect them. On one of the bas-reliefs
from Koyunjik, in the British Museum, we may see
the king of Assyria in his chariot devoutly saluting
a tall palm-tree that stands by the way side.
" Nat. Hist, I, xii. * I. vii. 31.
100 SACRED TREES.
SACRED BUSHES IN PERSIA.
Travellers in Persia inform us, that throughout
the country the natives address themselves to sacred
trees (dracte fasels), and that even the Moham-
medans, who would shudder at any imputation of
idolatry, believe that in their addresses and offerings
to them, they only invoke the true God, the great
Creator. In Sir William Ouseley’s Travels in the
East, we find it stated that “many an aged bush
has been exalted into a dirakhti ſãzel from the fancied
appearance of fire glowing in the midst of it, and
then suddenly vanishing.” This name, according
to Chardin, implies “the excellent tree.”
Very old plane-trees are especially venerated, a
circumstance which can excite no wonder, for the
plane-tree (platanus orientalis) is one of the noblest
of oriental trees, the admiration alike of poets and
philosophers.”
Maimonides, in his tract on idolatry, alludes to the
adoration of trees by the Israelites (Jer. ii. 20); and
it was from out of a burning bush that Moses heard
the voice of the Lord, and received the injunction to
put off his shoes, for that the place was holy ground.
In that magnificent Psalm (xxix), in which the
1 Vol. i., Appendix ix.
* See Mr. Urquhart's Spirit of the East.
SACRED BUSHES IN PERSIA. 101
rushing wind, the roaring waters, the lightning and
the tempest, are by a bold, yet true figure of speech,
called the voice of the Lord, we read in our Autho-
rized Version, following the Vulgate (v. 9), “The
voice of the Lord maketh the hinds to calve, and
discovereth the forests.” According to Lowth and
others, the Hebrew word rendered “hinds” should
have been rendered oaks, and the passage more cor-
rectly translated would be, “The voice of the Lord
maketh the oaks to tremble, and layeth bare the
forests.” From the second part of this verse, “and in
his temple doth every one speak of his glory,” we
perceive the intimate association, in the mind of the
writer, between the voice of the Lord, the rushing
wind among the oaks, and his glory in the temple,
the one being as sacred as the other.
Mr. Bruce mentions in his travels, that in Abys-
sinia, the wanzy-tree is avowedly worshipped as God,
and Mr. Salt has confirmed this statement. In
Arabia, Africa, India, China, and Japan, certain
trees are reported to be still worshipped, and deity
is believed to be seated on the summit of the trunk,
or sufficiently near, that the attendant spirits below
can readily transmit to him the prayers offered up by
the faithful. This notion admits of a satisfactory ex-
planation—these trees of grateful shade having been
the resort of pious men for prayer and meditation,
obtained thereby a certain Sanctity: God, who is
102 SACRED TREES.
ever present to hear prayer, was thus intimately
associated with them, as He is, by many Christians,
with the interior of churches; and ministering spi-
rits, ideal personifications present only to pious minds,
became, by imagination, transformed into objective
realities. In an engraving of the gateway at Sanchee
given by Mr. Fergusson in his Picturesque Illustra-
tions of Ancient Architecture in Hindoostan, there is
represented, on one of the panels of the gate, the
worship of a tree placed on an altar; before it de-
votees are prostrating themselves in prayer, while
angels with crowns of glory are floating in the air
above: it is just such a scene as a poetic imagination
might picture to itself before the high altar of a
Roman Basilica, and such as Christian painters,
who love the poetry of their art, are wont to repre-
sent: we have only to substitute the cross for the
tree, and the resemblance would be complete.
We may call to mind the remark of our Lord to
Nicodemus, “when thou wast under the fig-tree I
saw thee,” and the conviction which, in consequence,
Nicodemus felt that Christ was God. The impres-
sion on the mind of the youthful Jacob, on his way
to Padan-aram, when he awoke from his dream and
exclaimed, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I
knew it not,” is one which might occur to many,
who, slumbering beneath the grateful shade of um-
brageous trees, had seen, in their dreams, a glimpse
SACRED BUSHES IN PERSIA. 103
of the visionary world, so that the locality to them
would henceforth become sacred.
Sir William Ouseley relates from a manuscript
chronicle, composed by Tabri in the ninth century,
that at Najrán in Yemen, outside the city, stood a
date-tree, to which, on a certain day in each year, all
the people went to hold a solemn festival, and hav-
ing assembled about it, covered it with garments of
rich embroidery, and brought to it all their idols,
and laid them under it, and having gone in pro-
cession round about it, and offered up prayers and
paid reverence to it, returned again to the city. The
same author, in a note, has the following passage—
“An ingenious writer having mentioned some Indian
and Japanese symbols of the divinity, adds “arboris
truncum in cujus summitate sedet supremus Creator
Deus. Aliud quiddam esset observatione dignum :
sed ego truncum arboris meditor, etc.” At sive Ja-
ponenses, sive Indos, sive Tibetanos adeas, ubique
tibi occurret, virentis arboris religio, ob symbola
forsan creationis, et conservationis rerum recepta,
atgue retenta.”" The figure of Netpe, as the goddess
of the divine life, which the Egyptians represented
in their sepulchral monuments seated among the
branches of the Tree of Life in the paradise of Osiris,
was purely symbolical; it was not the deity, but was
figurative of the divine sustenance of the immortal
soul thence proceeding.
* Georg., Alphab. Tibetan, p. 142.
104 SACRED TREES.
SACRED TREES IN INDIA AND JAPAN, AND
THE ANCIENT HINDU FAITH.
The worship of the bo-tree, or peepul, the ſicus
religiosa, enters largely into the mysteries of the
Buddha faith, and did from an early period, as we
find it represented in the caves at Cuttah. Under
this tree Vishnu was born—the second person in
the Brahminical Trinity—which was considered to
be the most ancient on record, until the discovery
of still earlier triads on the monuments of Egypt.
It consists of Brahma the creator, Vishnu the pre-
server or Saviour, and Siva the transformer, which
are the three interchangeable attributes of the
great first intellectual cause Brahm. These per-
sonifications form the Trimurti, which is expressed
liturgically by the very sacred name AUM, or OM, and
adored under the symbol of the water-lily.
All that we know of the ancient faith of India,
anterior to the advent of Buddha, the ninth incar-
nation of Vishnu, is to be found in the Vedas, pro-
bably compiled about thirteen centuries before Christ,
or a little earlier, and in what may be gathered from
the Institutes of Menu, which are some five or six
centuries later: in these there is a form of salutation
addressed to the gods of great trees.
SACRED TREES IN INDIA AND JAPAN. 105
Mr. Colebrooke, in his essay on the Vedas, states
that “the real doctrine of the whole Indian Scrip-
ture is the unity of the deity in whom the universe
is comprehended,”—a profound and solemn concep-
tion, which has been the philosophical faith of man
from the earliest known period of his written history.
It was the doctrine of the Egyptian mysteries, and of
the Orphic theology, was held by prophets and phi-
losophers, by poets sacred and profane, and was em-
bodied by the northern imagination under the figure
of the mundane tree.
The Aboriginal people of India are the Tamul
tribes; the Sanskrit speaking people were strangers
to that land, they were the conquering race, and
came across the Indus many centuries before the
Christian era, bringing with them, in their Vedantic
lore, the traditions and the religion of that great
central source of nations from which the Persians,
and probably the Medes, migrated to the south, and
the European races to the west. Dr. Albert Weber,
in his Academische Worlesungen über indische Lite-
raturgeschichte, remarks that the commencement of
the Vedic civilization certainly reaches back to a
time when the Indo-Aryans still lived as one people
with the Persic-Aryans —probably this may have
been in Bactria about 1500 B.C. The decyphering
of the great arrow-headed inscription at Behistun
shewed that it was an old form of Persian, closely
106 SACRED TREES.
allied to the Vedic Sanskrit of India on the one hand,
and to the Zend on the other.
The religion of India, like that of other countries,
has had its revolutions. The religion of Brahma was
of a more metaphysical character than the worship
of nature-gods which preceded it, or than that which
followed it, when Siva, obtaining the ascendant, the
adoration of the vital force under the symbol of the
Lingam was introduced, with the belief in the eter-
nity of matter. Next came the turn of Vishnu, when
the orgies which had disgraced the former profession
were put down, and the purity of the Brahminical
culte was, in great part, restored. Buddha, or the
word of Divine reason made flesh, succeeded him."
The father of the founder of Buddhism, Suddhó-
dana, was the last of a long line of solar princes re-
duced to the sovereignty of a petty principality.”
His son Sakya Muni was the sage, and the reformer
of the Brahminical system. -
He simplified the theological teaching, and broke
down the partition wall between the priests and the
people. He did not recognize the institution of
castes; according to him, all without exception were
invited to receive the Word, and its benefits were
1 The advent of Buddha has been differently stated, some autho-
rities, with Sir William Jones, give 102.7 B.C. as the year of his birth;
others, 1022; with 947 B.C., or 942, or even 536 B.C., as the year of
his death.
* He was king of Magadha in South Behar and Māyā.
SACRED TREES IN INDIA AND JAPAN. 107
conferred without distinction of persons. When the
Buddhists were subsequently driven out of India by
the Brahmins, some took refuge in Ceylon, others
spread themselves over the Chinese empire, Birmah,
and Japan. Buddhism has its metaphysical as well
as its moral teaching, and is more philosophical than
religious.
Buddhist metaphysics recognize an active intel-
ligent principle equivalent to the Logos or Divine
Wisdom, of which the sage, Buddha, was the im-
personation, and a plastic principle called Dharmma,
from whose union proceed the multitudinous phe-
nomena of the external world known as Sangha.
The first or intelligent principle may be regarded
as prior and superior to the second, or co-existing
with it from all eternity; hence there are two
theories in the schools. But as the object of all
holiness and metaphysical speculation in, the Indian
theology, whether Buddhist or Brahminical, is the
return of the soul to God, who gave it, and reab-
sorption into the divine essence, whereby indivi-
duality is annihilated, in other words, the obtaining
NIRVANA, there is little or no practical difference
between these theories.
Among the titles given to Buddha, are those of
omniscient, immaculate, saviour, comforter, and deity
of felicitous advent.
The moral code of the Buddhists seems quite un-
108 SACRED TREES.
exceptional. Their decalogue is less special than
that of Moses. The command to speak the truth
is not omitted, but is as positive as the command not
to kill, nor to steal, nor to commit adultery. It also
commands to abstain from hasty language, and from
idle and superfluous words, a precept insisted upon in
the gospel of our Lord, and in the moral code of the
ancient Egyptians. Along with the latter, and the
Kelts, the Buddhists recognized the transmigration
of the soul."
In Ceylon, where the doctrine of Buddha is be-
lieved to be the purest, he is known as Gotama.
The form of Buddhism which still exists in India,
is called Jaina, and is a mixture of Buddhism and
Brahminism. But the mass of the people are devout
adherents either of Siva or Vishnu. In the philoso-
phical doctrine of two principles, an intellectual and
a material, and the impregnation of the latter by
the former, we have again the primitive theology or
cosmography of the Bible, in which the “spirit of
God” is described as brooding over the waters of
chaos, making them pregnant by his influence.—
With this, the cosmo-theology of Orpheus, and that
of the Druids, also agree.—Among the ancient Egyp-
1 The great Buddhist Chronicle, the Mahawanso, is written in Pali,
a language which, like the Zend, has ceased to be spoken, and is now
the language only of the liturgy and the sacred books. The Mahawanso
is considered by some to be the most valuable historical document we
possess in reference to ancient India.
SACRED TREES IN INDIA AND JAPAN. 109
tians, the creating power of deity received a distinc-
tive impersonation, and became Pthah : the “spirit
of God” that moved on the face of the waters was
named Nū or Núm.
The Buddhists have also their sacred trees, which
are said to be numerous in China and Japan. In
Ceylon there is the bogaha or god's tree, a title syno-
nymous with the Shefferet allah, or god's tree of the
Arabs, and probably with the diu-dar, or demon tree
of the Persians, which resembles the Indian fir.
Captain Wilford, in an article in the tenth volume
of the Asiatic Researches, says that the tree of life
and knowledge, or the jambu tree, in the Buddhist
maps of the world, is always represented in the shape
of a Manichean cross placed on a calvary. It is
called “the divine tree,” the tree of the gods, and of
whatever is good and desirable, and it grows in the
terrestial paradise. “When the tree is represented
as a trunk without branches, as in Japan, it is then
said to be the seat of the supreme one. When two
arms are added, as in our cross, the trimurti is said
to be seated there. When with five branches, the
five sugats, or grand forms of Buddha are said to
reside upon them.” "
The parallelism with the practice of the British
Druids is here very remarkable, as is also the resem-
blance to the Christian symbolism of the cross.
* See the article alluded to, p. 124.
110 SACRED TREES.
In reference to the Indian fir, as a sacred tree, it
may be remarked, that, on the basement of the grand
colonnade of a palace at Persepolis, is represented
in relief, a solemn procession, where fir-trees of a
somewhat conventional form are introduced, bearing
cones such as are seen in the hands of the officiating
priest, or personified divine attribute, on the Assyrian
monuments. *
It has been thought, and with much probability,
that the older religion of India was a personified
conception of the living forces of the physical world,
which, when raised to a more metaphysical character,
became conjoined to a peculiar social system, that of
castes, in which its higher doctrines and privileges
were withheld from the ignorant and vulgar. Buddha
prohibited this system of exclusion, and proclaimed
the highest spiritual truths to all, and not to his own
nation only, but to more distant ones also ; and his
followers exhibit, as it has been truly said, the first
grand example of missionary energy and self-sacrifice
for spiritual truth.
The development of the theological idea, con-
sidered as a process of unveiling the deep things of
nature, and the conception of nature's God, naturally
follows a certain order: first come nature gods, ener-
gies, powers, vital forces, which receive forms at the
* See M. Flandin's work Voyage en Perse, plate marked Palace,
No. 2. -
SACRED TREES IN INDIA AND JAPAN. 111
hands of poets, and are popularly regarded as person-
ifications — gods in human shape, until philoso-
phers, perceiving a certain unity of action and har-
monious combination among them, refer them to one
source: hence there is a philosophical unity in the
popular plurality, and what the multitude regard as
many, the better informed recognize as one.
Subsequently, when the meditative faculty is
turned upon itself, and mind becomes the subject
of its own speculations, a more intellectual idea of
a supreme ruler is formed, and God is regarded as
existing in a more intimate connection with human
intelligence than with the external world. The su-
premacy of mind being acknowledged, the deity
comes to be considered as the universal mind, the
self-existing reason and infinite intelligence, from
which our own is derived; and as, with man, the
thought precedes its external material development,
so in regarding the universe around us, as proceed-
ing from an ever active universal intelligence, which
its order demonstrates to our own derived reason,
we conclude, in its production, that mind preceded
matter, and that the former alone, was eternal,
though both co-existed in all º/
Beyond this it does not appear that our concep-
tions can carry us. Detween eternity and time there
is the same sort of difference as between the infinite
and the finite. That is, they are not merely incom-
112 SACRED TREES.
mensurable, and different in degree, but are essen-
tially different from each other in kind.
The history of religion among all nations shows
many of the same characters. The human family, in
its course through progressive forms of civilization,
exhibits similar features, and its institutions be-
come adapted to every stage of its career. We find,
as the development and cultivation of the religious
idea proceeds, that persons are educated with an
especial regard to the acquirements needed in its
teachers and ministers. With the establishment of
a ritual and public functions, an order of persons is
formed to whom particular privileges are accorded,
and whom the natural reverence due to the sacred
office soon raises above every other class. The power
and influence thus obtained, in the changes to which
all sublunary things are subject, come eventually to
be abused; pride, ambition, and arrogance take the
place of humility, devotion, and piety; the religious
element needs renovation, and a reformation or revo-
lution follows in the natural course of things. The
change which Buddha effected in India was of this
kind, and has been regarded as analogous to our
European Protestant Reformation. He abolished
caste, and proclaimed that all men were equal in the
eyes of the Divinity, and were invited freely to par-
ticipate in his goodness and mercy. With opposing
interests comes also a struggle for supremacy. Then
SACRED THREES IN INDIA AND JAPAN. 113
there is persecution and the sword, and either one
party overcomes and suppresses the other, or if they
be nearly balanced, a compromise is effected between
them, and a religion grows up exhibiting certain
characters of both. But whatever be the new re-
ligion introduced, it will, under the influences of
climate and custom, receive a modification from the
older one, and, among the people, a popular leaven
will for a long time remain. The superstitious
regard which in Christian countries has been shown
to certain trees may thus be explained.
The above remarks may be regarded as one theory
of the rise, progress, and history of religion ; but
it by no means follows that there may not have
been, from the creation of man, a religious principle
implanted in his nature, a principle of conscious per-
sonal relation to the Deity, and as much an essential
characteristic of the species, as reason, and its ex-
pression—speech.
This latter, if not the more philosophic theory of
the two, is at least the more poetical, is more in har-
mony with our religious feelings, and is that which
agrees best with the mythical narrative in Genesis,
in which the positive precept of the Deity to the
newly-made man of clay, that he should not eat the
fruit of a certain tree, here introduced as the symbol
of obedience, “The tree of the knowledge of good
and evil,” under the penalty of spiritual death for
8
114 SACRED TREES.
disobeying the command, would show, by inference,
the accredited belief that in the beginning there
existed a conscious personal relationship between
man and his Maker.
In this ancient record, which bears upon its front
the inspired impress of representative truths, we
read, among other things, of a sacred tree, the Tree
of Life, which, so long as man lived in a loving
conformity to the Divine will, he was permitted to
approach and to partake of. This religious symbol
of a primeval doctrine we find carried out by the
human race in all their migrations and settlements;
it is sometimes a symbol, sometimes an idol, but
there it is, in Europe, in Asia, and in Africa, a
perpetual testimony to the fitness of the original
idea, and a confirmation of its truth.
THE NACKAS.
From time immemorial there have been preserved
in Asia, on this side the Indus, sacred books, which,
like the Vedas, are written in a language no longer
spoken, and in characters no longer used. Like the
Vedas also, these sacred books have ever been objects
of veneration among the people who possess them,
and who regard them as the foundation of religion,
and as the most ancient witness to them of the Divine
will.
THE NACKAS. 115
The name of these books is the Mackas; and Zo-
roaster is supposed to have been the author of the
revelations they contain. The language in which
they are written is the Zend, and while the Vedas
are received with submissive authority beyond the
Indus, these are acknowledged with equal reverence
on this side of it.
In the latter, observes M. Reynaud, the divinity
Haôma is identical with the divinity Soma of the
former, and this is shown, not only by the rules for
the transmutation of the Zend into Sanskrit, but also
by the characteristics of this divinity being the same
in both, and the same with the Hom of the Parsees.
The hom is a small plant growing on the moun-
tains of Asia, on this side the Indus; when conse-
crated, it is the material symbol of the Deity, whose
name in the Zend-aresta is the same. M. Reynaud
is of opinion that the name Hom among the Aryan
nations preceded the name Ormuzd, just as, among
the Hebrews, the name All-mighty preceded the name
of the Subsisting, now called ADONAï, to which the
teaching of Moses refers. “Ego Dominus qui ap-
parui Abraham, Isaac, et Jacob, in Deo omnipotente;
et nomen meum ADONAi non indicavi eis” (Exod.
vi. 3). :
The Hom of the Persians is spoken of in the Zend-
! Ency. Nouvelle.
116 SACRED TREES.
apesta as the Word of Life, and has its echo on the
earth; also as the author of salvation, and at the
same time the announcer of it; as the Tree of Life,
and source of the living Water of Life."
The plant Hom, when consecrated, is regarded as
the mystical body of God; and when partaken of as
a sacrament, is received as the veritable food of eter-
nal life.
This germ of eucharistic conception belongs to the
primitive epochs of Brahminism and of Mazdeism,
and is the common point of their union and sepa-
ration.
Over the side-door of a church at Masigny (Cal-
vados), in the Tympanum, is a symbolical Tree of
Life, which M. du Caumont thinks may be meant
for the Hom. Two animals are feeding on it.
The British Druids have been regarded by Borlase
and others as identical in their office with the Per-
sian Magi; Strabo considered them to be of the same
order, and remarks of the latter, that in the cele-
brations of their sacred rites they carried in the hand
a bunch of little plants—this was the bunch of hom,
called barsom, which was perpetually used in their
ceremonies. The figures on the bas-relief at Perse-
polis carry such in their hands; it has an open flower
something like that of the lotus, and is apparently
1 See M. Guigniaut, Religions de l’Antiquité, M. Reynaud, etc.
THE NACKAS, 117
the same as that which enters so largely into the
ornamentation of the Assyrian palaces.
The Hom, as already remarked, when consecrated
to God, was regarded as God himself, and was sup-
posed to give life, being the person of God eaten by
man. The mistletoe of the Druids may have received
an analogous importance, and have been looked upon
in the same light.
There is a passage in Isaiah (vi. 13) which our
translators have thus rendered:—“But yet in it
shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and shall be
eaten : as a teil tree, and as an oak, whose substance
às in them, when they cast their leaves: so the holy
seed shall be the substance thereof.”
This, like some other passages in our authorized
translation is very obscure, in the Vulgate it is less so."
On this text Dr. Stukeley remarks:– “In my
opinion Isaiah alludes to the mistletoe in that ob-
scure and corrupt passage which commentators avoid,
and it means to make the plant symbolical of the
Messiah, and of Christianity to be inoculated, (as it
may be said) on Judaism, -thus let it be read if we
would make sense of it. “As an oak whose plant is
alive upon it, when its leaves are cast, so the holy
seed shall be as the plant thereof.”
* & J * * ©
1. “Et adhuc in ea decimatio, et convertetur, et erit in ostensionem
sicut terebinthus, et sicut quercus, quae expandit ramos Suos : semen
sanctum erit id, quod steterit in ea.”
118 SACRED TREES.
Perhaps Dr. Stukeley should have added, “And it
shall be eaten.” Between the All-heal and the Hom
there would appear to be a certain analogy, and they
would seem to have had certain properties ascribed
to them in common; while the mystical sense attached
to them is, apparently, identical.
The worship of trees was condemned in France by
the councils of Auxerre, Nantes, and Tours; in Eng-
land it was forbidden by the laws of Canute.
As late as the latter part of the eighteenth century
it existed in Livonia; and traces of it may still be
found in the British Isles. Colonel Keating, in his
travels in Europe and Africa, states that near Moga-
dore he saw the sacred arayel strung with offerings
“of rags, potsherds, and like trash,” and adds, “a
traveller will see precisely the like in the west of
Ireland.” The English May-pole decked with co-
loured rags and tinsel, the merry morrice dancers,
and the mysterious Jack in the green, are the last
faint traces of the worship of sacred trees once pre-
valent in England. .
Sacred trees were in some countries sprinkled with
wine; this was an ancient practice, equivalent to
making libations to them as gods. Madame de
Genlis alludes to this custom as still practised in her
time in France at the annual ceremony of planting
the May-pole.
Thus the superstitious regard which in Christian
SYMBOLICAL CORRESPONDENCES. 119
countries has been shown to certain trees, while it
admits of explanation, points also to a primitive
practice, in harmony with the figurative language of
early literature, and with the symbolical character of
Holy Writ.
SYMBOLICAL CORRESPONDENCES.
THE subject of Sacred Trees suggests a larger
application of Symbolism to which, in fact, it be-
longs; on this a few remarks will here be made.
Man, always and everywhere, stands in the same
relation to the Deity, whatever may for the time be
his knowledge of this relationship, and the convic-
tions which flow from it. More or less of this per-
ception and its results characterize the history of the
religious development at all periods and among all
peoples. Coincidences, therefore, are to be expected,
and may occur in periods of time, possibly at long
intervals. These coincidences confirm what ought to
be regarded as evidences of the divine origin of re-
ligion, and are, indeed, among the most satisfactory
proofs of it.
Conceptions of the Divine Nature can only exist
according to the degree of mental capacity to enter-
tain them, and this capacity is the result of know-
ledge. On knowledge, therefore, depend the notions
120 SYM BOLICAL CORRESPONDENCES.
which are formed of God, and the requirements of
religious worship. As knowledge is progressive, all
that results from it is progressive also ; and theo-
logical doctrine, which is a gradual unfolding of
religious truths to the cultivated intellect, must follow
its development, or die out, as history shows.
Reason and truth are impersonal, and what is true
in itself is always true, though the manner of repre-
senting it be different. At the birth-day of nations,
we may suppose that the same fundamental truth
formed the starting post of a variety of religious
systems, which, in their course through the world,
became subject to influences, modifying, more or less
the original form, but never effacing it entirely.
Thus the primitive Unity became developed into a
Trinity, and, in the generation of ideas and concep-
tions, gods also were generated, following the typical
form of a human family. On this subject M. Rougé
has the following remarks' :—
“The Egyptians distinguished in the eternal gener-
ation of the divinity, a father and a son, whose
personalities were more or less confounded or kept
separate, according to the usage of different times
and places. To these two, a feminine personage,
acting the part of the mother, was added, and thus
the divine triad was completed, such as we find it
1 Notice Sommaire des Monuments Egyptions eſºposés dans les galeries
du Museé du Louvre, etc. Paris 1855. p. 100,
SYMBOLICAL CORRESPONDENCES. 121
adored in most of the temples. At Sais, the mother
acted the principal part under the name of Neith ;
at Thebes she was subordinate to Ammon, who acted
the part of the father, but was, at the same time,
confounded with the person of the son, as is already
shown in the legend where he is named the husband
of his mother, llaut. The goddess of Thebes was, in
fact, his wife according to his character of father, but
she was his mother according to his character of
son.”
Poets were the first descriptive theologians, and
those expressions of a poetic symbolism, by which
fundamental truths were figuratively expressed, pass-
ing from the poets to the priests, or an exclusively
religious order, lost their elasticity, and were re-cast
into dogmatic forms. The Greeks were supposed,
by M. Creuzer, to have received from Egypt, or the
East, their first theological notions of God and re-
ligion, veiled in symbols, significant of a primitive
Monotheism; these, at a later period, being translated
into symbolical or allegorical language, were by the
poets transformed into epic or narrative myths, in
which the original subject symbolised was almost
effaced, whilst the allegorical expressions were re-
ceived generally in a literal sense. Hence, to the
many, the meaning of the ancient doctrine was lost,
and was communicated only to the few, under the
strictest secresy, in the mysteries of Eleusis and
122 SYMBOLICAL CORRESPONDENCES.
Samothrace." Thus there was a popular theology to
suit the people, and a rational theology reserved for
the educated, the symbolical language in both being
the same, but the meaning of it being taken dif-
ferently. In course of time, as knowledge makes its
way among the people, and religious enlightenment
with it, much of what had been received literally
will relapse into its original figurative or symbolical
meaning; Reason will resume her supremacy, and
stereotyped dogmas will fall like pagan idols before
advancing truth.
In the established course of Nature and Being, of
which our terrestrial system and ourselves form a
passing phase, there is an invariable order of design
and sequence, of cause and effect, a drawing out, or
development, of the intentions of Deity, according
to an unchangeable rule and measure. It is by this
established order, so far as our limited capacities
enable us to perceive and comprehend it, that we are
enabled to form some conception of the attributes of
the Almighty, and to discern in creation an intel-
lectual image of God.
Le cose tutte quante
Hann' ordine tra loro; e questosé forma
Che l'universo a Dio fa simigliante.”—(Pard. i., 103–5.)
This order, as regards ourselves, always was the
! See M. Charles Lévêque in Revue des Deua Mondes, 15 Mai, 1866.
* “All things have order among themselves, and this it is which makes
the universe resemble God.”
SYMBOLICAI, CORRESPONDENCES. 123
same, and always will be, so long as nature lasts.
True science consists in the knowledge of the prin-
ciples involved in it, their relation to each other, and
their application. If these principles, or laws, were
not invariable, there would be no certainty in any-
thing, no durability in the fabric of the universe, no
order, no image of Deity, but a wild chaos without a
guiding hand—a world without a Providence Divine.
Not only is our physical existence governed by
positive and invariable laws, but the exercise of our
moral and religious faculties, and their development,
also proceed in harmony with universal principles,
so that the phenomena of religious systems, in all
ages and among all nations, equally pertain to the
historical development and course of the human con-
science, and have a connected significance among
themselves. In some instances, two or more are
found to present a remarkable resemblance; but it
does not thence follow that one was derived from the
other; both may have descended from a common
ancestor, and thus come to bear a family likeness
through the medium of symbolical correspondences.
Thus, in some respects, there is a singular, re-
semblance between the religious doctrines of ancient
Egypt and those of modern Christendom. But no
one would thence infer that Christianity was origi-
nally derived from Egypt, however it may subse-
quently have been influenced by Egyptian dogmas
124 SYMBOLICAL CORRESPONDENCES.
and usages. The Egyptians were the most civilized
and seriously religious people of antiquity. “In the
expression of a profound submission to the Supreme
Being, the religion of Egypt,” observes M. Beaure-
gard,” “did not proceed with less devout effusion and
admiration than the Christian. Before it, and like
it, the Egyptian religion recognized in the Deity all
the perfections which render Him eternal, infinite,
and omnipotent. Nor had the heart of man less
gratitude and love for the Divinity then than it has
now.” In the worship of a Saviour of souls (see pp.
20–21, 28, 59) who had come upon earth for the
benefit of mankind, had been put to death, had risen
again, and become the judge of the dead, which was
“the great mystery,” along with the firm belief in a
future state of retribution according to the deeds done
in the flesh, the national religion of ancient Egypt
corresponded with that of modern Europe. The
* Les Divinités Egyptiennes, leur origine, leur culte et son eagansion
dans le monde, par Olivier Beauregard. Paris, 1866.
* Wilkinson, who states that the worship of Osiris, and the reception
of his myth, “were of the earliest times, and universal in Egypt.”
(Popular Account of the Ancient Egyptians, vol. i., p. 331; see also
note, p. 20.) According to the legend, a very symbolical one, Osiris
was the son of Sev (or time), and his mother was Netpe (the vault of
heaven) (Rougé). He alone, of all the Egyptian gods, was born and
died on earth. His birth-place was mount Sinai, called by the
Egyptians Nissa, hence his Greek name Dio-nysus, the same, says Mr.
Sharpe, as the Hebrew Jehovah-Nissi, which Moses gave to the
Almighty when he set up an altar to him at the foot of the holy
mountain (Exod. xvii., 15). Philae, or the Holy Island, is the more
accredited place of his burial. See Egyptian Mythology and Egyptian
Christianity, by Samuel Sharpe. London, 1863.
SYMBOLICAL CORRESPONDENCES. 125
coincidence is, indeed, very curious, and shows what
the development of the religious idea may lead to,
even if it does not show much more. -
What if there should be in the divine spiritual
economy of man a principle analogous to that in the
economy of the physical world, which has regulated
the production of the higher forms of vegetable and
animal life, these having appeared on the earth when
the conditions required for their existence were at-
tained ? What if history should show that a similar
principle applies to the moral and religious economy
of nations, and that this law is an illustration of the
infinite wisdom and goodness of the Deity, which
pious souls in all ages have delighted to contemplate P
Why not ? Passages in Scripture' bear it out, and
what is there stated of individuals is applicable to
nations also. The moral code of Egypt will bear
comparison with that of any Christian country what-
ever. Duties were there enjoined of which Europe
had not heard before the promulgation of the Gospel.
Religion and morality recognize the same obligations
among all civilized nations, and it is in their observ-
ance only that the true claim to Christian privileges
consists.” Among the offences strictly prohibited by
the moral code of Egypt, were those of speaking idle
1 Acts x, 34; 2 Chr. xix., 7; Job xxviii., 28; xxxiv., 11, 19; Psi.
lxxxv., 9; czi., 10; Isaiah lyi., 1, 6–7; etc., etc.
* Matt. viii., 11 ; Luke xiii., 29; Div. Com. Pard., xix., 103.11.
126 SYMBOE, ICAL CORRESPONDENCES,
or superfluous words, and of causing grief to one's
neighbour. From these imputations the departed
soul had to clear itself when brought before the
forty-two judges, as shown in the “Ritual of the
Dead.” 1
The doctrine of an atonement by vicarious suffer-
ing may be regarded as the supreme expression of
religious consciousness. We cannot be surprised
that it was held by the Egyptians, when we consider
the profoundly religious character of that ancient
people. If we had the means, we might be able,
perhaps, to trace it far beyond the Egyptian period.
From the hints furnished by the Bible it would seem
to have been pre-historic.
Both Jews and Christians were greatly indebted to
the Egyptians for religious doctrine and symbolic
worship. Moses drew largely from this source, and,
at a later period, the Jews settled at Alexandria
imbibed much of the recondite lore of which that
city had become the seat. Here Jews, and Egyp-
tians, and Greeks, and Persians, and Arabs, mingled
together their abstruse speculations; here, in the
first century of the Christian era, flourished Philo
! It is evident that the invocations, prayers, and precepts of this
ritual, though nominally for the dead, were virtually intended for the
use of the living. The words of Our Lord—“But I say unto you,
That every idle word that man shall speak, they shall give account
thereof in the day of judgment” (Matt. xii., 36)—would almost seem
to have been suggested by this very custom. For an account of this
“Ritual” see Rougé, Lepsius, Brugsch, and other authorities.
SCRIPTURE SYMBOLISM. 127
and his philosophic school; from this fountain of
luminous waters flowed the doctrine of the Logos,
with the philosophy of the fourth gospel; and from
thence, also, at a later period, the Catholic Church
drew most of its orthodox dogmas, along with its
verbal symbolism.
Mr. Sharpe' describes a series of sculptures on
the wall of the temple at Luxor (p. 18), in which
the miraculous annunciation, conception, birth, and
adoration of Amunothph III., the son of the virgin
queen Mautmes, is represented in a manner similar
to what is described in St. Luke's Gospel (ch. 1 and
2) of Jesus Christ, the son of the Virgin Mary, and
which is found also in the Gospel of St. Matthew
(ch. 1) as an addition not met with in the earliest
manuscripts; and he suggests that both accounts
may have been of Egyptian origin. The coincidence
may, perhaps, be explained on the principle of
symbolical correspondences, similar subjective modes
of treatment having been used to exalt the subject of
them, and to express the devout feelings of their
authors.
SCRIPTURE SYMBOLISM.
In the Hebrew Scriptures we have a good illustra-
tion of the influence of symbolism on religious
* Opus citatum.
|
128 SYMBOLICAL CORRESPONDENCEs.
doctrine, as shown by M. Creuzer, in reference to
the Greeks. We have primitive symbols turned into
symbolical allegories, and transformed into narrative
myths, which subsequently were mistaken by the
unlearned for literal facts. When the Hebrew
theology came to have an existence distinct from
primitive tradition, Deity was put forth in sym-
bolism of human characters. He is at first repre-
sented as the Creator, with human members and
senses, who works with his hands, walks on his feet,
and writes with his finger; who hears, and sees, and
speaks as men do, and, like them, is angry or pleased.
Subsequently, he is the God of Nature, he descends
from heaven in fire, his voice is in the thunder,
he rides upon a cherub, and flys upon the wings of
the wind. These images indicate a considerable ad-
vancement in the manner of representing the ideal
conceptions of Deity. We need not suppose, with
a learned prelate,' that mankind in the world’s in-
fancy, were “no better than Anthropomorphites,” as
“perhaps, a great part of the world yet are,” but that
the primitive symbolism, apparently of Egyptian
origin, had a human or sensuous character before it
gave place to one derived from natural phenomena,
which, at a later period, was succeeded by symbolism
of a more personal and paternal kind drawn from
the relations of a family to its head.
| Bishop Law's Considerations on the Theory of Religion, p. 64.
SCRIPTURE SYMBOILISM. 129
Dante well explains why this human symbolism
was applied to spiritual things, when he says,
“Cosi parlar conviensi alvostro ingegno,
Perocchè solo da sensato apprende
Ció che fa poscia d'intelletto degno.
Per questo la Scrittura condescende
A vostra facultate, e piedi e mano
Attribuisce a Dio, ed altro intende ;
E Santa Chiesa con aspetto umano
Gabrielle e Michel virappresenta,
E l'altro che Tobia rifece sano.”
Pard., iv., 40–48.
The Hebrew poets delighted in the phenomenal
symbolism of Deity. It is very characteristic of them,
and shows a deep love and appreciation of the grand
and sublime in nature. The transition from this de-
scriptive phenomenal symbolism to one of a more
intimate kind, may be traced in various places.
When Elijah, in his vision, had communication with
the Lord in mount Horeb (1 Kings, xix., 11–13), we
read—“Behold the Lord passed by, and a great and
strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces
the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in
the wind; and after the wind an earthquake; but
the Lord was not in the earthquake : and after the
earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire:
* “Thus to your understanding we must speak, because alone by
sense it is you learn that which becomes in time worthy of mind. For
this reason, Scripture condescends to your capacity, and feet and hands
* ascribes to God, yet otherwise intends. And holy church, with human
aspect, Gabriel and Michael represents, and he who healed Tobit.”
9
130 SYMBOLICAL CORRESPONDENCES.
and after the fire a still small voice. And it was so,
when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in
his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering
of the cave.” So also in that magnificent passage in
Job (iv., 12–17) where, in his vision, the writer says,
—“Then a spirit passed before my face; the hair of
my flesh stood up. It stood still, but I could not
discern the form thereof; an image was before mine
eyes, there was silence, and I heard a voice saying—
‘Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall a
man be more pure than his maker P’” We may
also perceive here the influence of a more oriental
and supernatural symbolism gradually superseding the
phenomenal one of the earlier Hebrew poets. In
the writers during and after the Babylonish cap-
tivity, the symbolism becomes mystical, and ideal
beings of Persian or Babylonish origin appear in
numbers. We have good and evil angels ; and
the previous harmony of heaven is disturbed by re-
bellious spirits. -
In the third century before Christ, the Hellenists
of Alexandria, who translated the Hebrew Scriptures
into Greek, gave the new version the benefit of their
newly acquired learning, and, among other changes,
transformed physical phenomena and mental qualities
into angels and spirits. This change of symbolism
prepared the way for what was to follow.
SYMBOLISM OF THE TRINITY IN UNITY. 131
SYMBOLISM OF THE TRINITY IN UNITY.
Egypt was fertile in Trinities. Every city of
importance had a local triad of its own, just as the
cities of Christendom and our London parishes have
their patron saints. Our modern Trinity had its
origin in Egypt, and its supplement was framed on
the Egyptian model.
At first this Trinity was a philosophic verbal
symbol, but passing into the hands of dogmatizing
priests, it lost its primitive purity, and became very
like a pagan notion borrowed from the generation of
the gods. As seen coming out, in the Apocryphal
book called “The Wisdom of Solomon,” it consists
of God, His Wisdom, and His Word, a Trinity of the
Almighty and two of his attributes." Wisdom had
previously been represented in a distinct, personified
form in “The Proverbs of Solomon;” and Philo, of
Alexandria, the chief of the Platonizing Jews, had
explained the A6)0s, or Word, as the communicating
medium between God and man.”
* “This is the Trinity described by Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch,
who is the first Christian writer who makes use of that term, since so
common in controversial divinity.” “It helped to prepare the minds
of the Alexandrians for the Arian Trinity of the third century, and the
Athanasian Trinity of the fourth.”—(Sharpe.)
* “Philo confessed, as any Jew must, an absolute Being ; one dwell-
ing in light, which no man hath seen or can see. How such a Being
could converse with man, how there could be sympathy between Him
and a creature, was the wonder of the Hebrew psalmist and prophet;
132 SYMBOLICAL CORRESPONDENCES.
His writings, jointly with the “Wisdom of Solomon,”
“teach us the steps by which the Egyptian doctrines
of plurality in unity, and of everything perfect having
three parts, found their way, first into the Alex-
andrine philosophy, Jewish as well as Pagan, and
then into Christianity, and at last established the
Christian Trinity.” (Sharpe.) But surely it can be
no objection to the doctrine of a Trinity in Unity
that long before the era of Christianity it existed in
Gentile theological systems. On the contrary, it is an
evidence of its subjective truthfulness, thus shown to
be in harmony with man’s conception of divine
things; in fact, Bossuet, following St. Augustin,
argued that every man has a certain image of the
Trinity in his own soul, and only requires to find
it out." Christian theology would be reduced to
but he believed while he wondered. Philo saw that such an inter-
course was as much implied in all the Hebrew records; as much
implied in the nature of God Himself, as His self-existence and self-
concentration. The two truths could not be reconciled in a theory.
A divine word, a logos, speaking to the mind and spirit which was
opened to hear the voice was, Philo thought, the reconciliation. Such
a speaker he traced in all the most obvious and minute expressions of
the divine book in all the steps of the Hebrew history.” (See Moral
and Metaphysical Philosophy, by the Rev. F. D. Maurice. London,
1850.) “The God of Philo,” observes M. Burnouf (Revue des Deua.
Mondes, Dec. 1, 1865), “is not merely the architect of the world, like
that of Plato, he is the creator of it. His first production is the Word,
the image of God, the first-born of all creatures, the type of man, the
celestial Adam. The Word, born before the world, is the son of God,
without being either equal to, or identical with, God. Philo gave the
theory of the incarnation and the active part (rôle) taken by the
Word nearly in the same terms as were used after him.”
1 Bossuet's formula consists of the Father who thinks, of the Son
who is his thought, and of the Eternal Love which proceeds from, and
unites them both, a very intelligent and simple proposition. He says
SYMBOLISM OF THE TRINITY IN UNITY. 133
narrow dimensions indeed if it excluded all truths
that had previously been held in veneration by the
human family. In a work lately published by M.
Ernest de Bunsen,” the author has shown that our
Lord had a secret doctrine, which was communicated
by him only to a few select disciples, and only as they
were able to receive it. It is the doctrine previously
prevalent at Alexandria, and found in all its details
in the writings of Philo. It occurs partly also in the
“Book of Wisdom,” but first appeared among the
Jews in the book of Ecclesiasticus. Bunsen shows
that it was taught by Zoroaster, and is found in
the Zend-avesta. This result has been confirmed by
M. Emile Burnouf, “In the Zend-avesta the whole
of the secret doctrine is found, almost in the identical
words of St. John; Jesus, the son of Mary, alone is
wanting.” “The Zend-avesta,” remarks the same
authority, “contains explicitly all the metaphysical
doctrine of Christianity, the Unity of God, of the
living God, the Spirit, the Word, the Mediator, the
Son begotten of the Father, the principle of life and
of sanctification. It contains, also, the theory of the
fall and redemption by grace.” *
also : “La pensée que nous sentons naitre comme le germe de notre
esprit, comme le fils de notre intelligence, nous donne quelques idée du
Fils de Dieu conqu èternellement dans l’intelligence du Pere celeste,
c'est pourquoi ce Fils de Dieu prend le nom de Werbe.” (Suite de la
Religion.)
* The Hidden Wisdom of Christ, and the Key of Knowledge ; or, the
History of the Apocrypha. London, 1865.
* Revue des Deux Mondes, Dec. 1, 1865.
134 SYMBOLICAL CORRESPONDENCES.
The Hebrews became acquainted with these doc-
trines during their captivity in Babylon; but even
before this time the Aryan ideas had made some
progress among them. They returned from Babylon
in 586 B.C., but the sacred books were not re-edited
by Esdras before 447.
The Athanasian doctrine of the Trinity in Unity,
as defined and defended by subtle distinctions, and
fenced about with theological tenets, presents a very
repulsive aspect. Dante restored its metaphysical
character when he described it as consisting of-
“La divina potestate
La Somma sapienza, e il primo amore.” –(Inf, iii., 4-5.)
Well might those who made this symbolical doc-
trine what it now is, at length desire to do tardy
justice to the female element, by promoting the
mother to the place once occupied by the Egyptian
Neith, and crowning her “Queen of Heaven.” This,
however, was only effected by long and persevering
efforts. “It was only by the repeated force of councils
and Papal bulls that the Virgin Mary was, by little
and little, raised up (hissée) to the foot of the throne
of the Supreme Being, where, under the name of
Maut, had sat the goddess Neith as a member of the
great Egyptian Trinity.” “It was not till 451, at
* “The power divine, the most high wisdom, and primeval love.”
Put the dogma into vulgar prose, let it, without offence, be said—That
one eternal god begot another eternal god, a god-man, in the womb of
SYMBOLISM OF THE TRINITY IN UNITY. 135
the council of Ephesus, the third general council, that
the Virgin was affirmed to be the Mother of God.
The festival of the Purification dates from 542,
and the institution of the Assumption from 813.”
(Beauregard.) It took more than a thousand years
to confer the Immaculate Conception, which was not
established till 1854.
In the Virgin Mother, however, we behold the
most lovely symbol of divinity and humanity which
the Church ever held up to its faithful followers, a
symbol sanctified by Raphael and consecrated to the
highest beauty. What would the Catholic heaven
be without the sunshine of Maria | What the
Paradise of Dante without her beloved presence
But these things require to be spiritually discerned.
On the passage in Genesis (xxii. 20-4) where the
names are mentioned of Nahor’s wife Milcah, and of
his concubine Reumah, Philo remarks:—“Let no
one who is in his senses suspect that the wise legis-
lator recorded this as a historical genealogy; it is
rather an eaſplanation of things which are able to benefit
a woman, by means of a third eternal god, and that these three Gods
are one God; and we shall have the substance of the Athanasian
creed according to the orthodox formula. What would the ingenuous,
Jesus-loving fishermen of Galilee have said to such a proposition as
this? So vague was the notion of this third God among the early
Christians, that in the fragment of a gospel preserved by St. Jerome,
and believed to have been from the original Aramaean Gospel of S.
Matthew, with additions, the Holy Ghost (ruach), which in Hebrew
is feminine, is called by the infant Saviour, “My mother, the Holy
Ghost.”
136 SYMHOLICAL CORRESPONDENCES.
the soul by means of symbols.” A principle that admits
of extensive application in sacred literature, where
the supernatural enters as an essential element.
We are there transported to a sphere of trans-
cendentalism beyond the region of sense, where second
causes are put aside, and Deity is brought into im-
mediate relation with man, for it is a theological
axiom,
“Chê dove Dio senza mezzo governa
La legge natural nulla relieva.”—Pard. xxx. 122-3.
But however applicable this may be to a state of
Paradise, or of pious souls, it has nothing whatever
to do with terrestrial phenomena. Here the laws of
nature rule and govern absolutely. To a certain
extent the supernatural in Sacred narratives, or what
is so regarded, may be considered as characteristic of
their genuineness, and indicative of the age in which
they were written. It has still attractions for the
many, and to explain it away, might, in their eyes,
endanger the authority of Scripture itself; whereas
the reverse ought to be the case, for the authority of
Scripture rests on the unchangeable nature of God
and the established relation in which mankind stand
to Him. We must never lose sight of the important
fact, that supernaturalism is rather in the manner of
relating things, than in the mode of their occurrence.
1 See Philo Judaeus, “On Seeking Instruction.” Yonge's translation.
* “Where God, without an intermediate, rules, the laws of nature
are of no account.” .
SOURCES OF THE SUPERNATURAL. 137
Omissions in a true story are often sufficient to
give it a supernatural character. The unexpected
revelation of Dante's bones at Ravenna, a few days
after his Festival at Florence, might thus be made to
read like a miracle. The instances recently related
in the Senate of France by the Cardinal Donnet,
Archbishop of Bordeaux, in which, by the sound of
a familiar voice, life was called back where it had
seemingly departed, have all the strange interest of
middle age miracles without their superstition. Belief
in the supernatural usually bears a direct ratio to the
prevalent ignorance of the natural laws of physical
and mental phenomena. In early times, and in the
middle ages, it was regarded less as a supplement to
the ordinary course of things, than as a received part
of it. Circumstances merely remarkable were then
set down as miraculous, and where the same condi-
tions of mind exist they will be so still. Miracles
require an atmosphere of faith for their production,
and would seem to be possible only among those who
believe in them, which shows their independence of
physical laws. Positive Science is constrained to pass
them over as pertaining to a visionary region where
reason has no place.
The pious mind does not regard with less reverence
the miracles of nature because they are of regular
recurrence and are beyond dispute.
* See the Times of March 2, 1866, Letter from Paris.
138 SYMBOLICAL CORRESPONDENCEs.
Dogmatical religion in its symbolical progress
transforms things as well as persons, and invests
them with supernatural characters. It also alters
the meanings of words by giving new applications of
them. Men thus make mysteries where before there
were none, and these are worked up into doctrines,
and imposed with authority under specious pretexts.
Pure religion and undefiled stands on higher ground
than this: like the Sermon on the Mount compared
with the sophistry of the Synagogue, its principles
are of universal application; and hence, as M. Albert
Réville very justly says, “True Christianity is more
comprehensive than all the churches and all other
historical religions whatever, since, in the conception
of its Divine Founder, it consists essentially in that
which in all places, and at all times, and under all
forms, has characterized the piety which is sincere,
and the religion which the conscience approves.”
FINIS.
IND EX.
BRAHAM, the Druid, 88,
98.
Abydos, note, 20.
Abyss of Heaven, 63.
ADoNAï, l 15.
Adytum, the, in Egyptian tem-
ples, 27, 28.
AEsir, the, 86.
Agincourt, M., 78.
Agnese, St., at Rome, 78.
Ahriman, 36.
Al, the meaning of, note, 90.
Alexandria, the learning at, 126.
—, the Hellenists of, 130.
All-Father, 9.
All-heal, the, 118.
Alphabetical Characters in refer-
ence to Architecture, 30.
Amenti, Genii of the, note, 39.
Ammon, 121.
Amunothph III., 127.
Anchor, the, as a symbol, 7.
Angels, 41, 134.
Anthropomorphites, 128.
Anubis, 25, 26.
Apocalypse, the, 69.
Apollo, 36, 75.
Apophis, the serpent, 38.
Architects, Institute of British,
v., 54.
Architecture, remarks on, 29.
—, Christian, vii, ix.
—, Symbolism of, 48-51.
—, Pointed, 42.
—, the principles of, 52.
—, Egyptian, 30.
Arrow or Arrows, as symbols, 45.
Art, Alexandrine, 9, 10.
Ash, the sacred, 86.
Atf, the, of Osiris, 65.
Augustin, St., 21, 74, 79, 132.
AUM or OM, 104.
Auréola, note, 44.
Autun, the cathedral at, 25.
AAL, 35.
Babylonish Captivity, the,
130, 134.
Bacchus, the Thyrsus of, 75, 76.
Baldachino, the, 20.
Balder, 91.
Banner, as a symbol, 46.
Baptist, Urn of the, at Genoa,
mote, 8.
Barsom, what, 116.
Beatrice of Dante, 36.
Beauregard, M., 124, 135,
Behistan, the arrow-headed in-
scriptions at, 105.
Bel, Belinus, 17, 91.
Beltis, the Assyrian, 35.
Berlin, Egyptian Museum at, 63,
67
Bible, cosmography of the, 108.
Birth, the new, 23.
Blanc, Mont, 37.
Bogaha tree, the, at Ceylon, 109.
Bonomi, Mr., note, 76.
Borlase, 92.
Bosio, 78.
Bo-tree, the, 104.
Brahma, 12, 104.
Bruce, Mr., the traveller, 101.
Brugsch, Dr.; 59, 65, 126.
Bryant, 12.
Buddha, 19, 106, 107, 110, 112.
Buddhism in Japan, 108.
Buddhist metaphysics, 107.
Buddhists, the, 16, 18, 19, 32.
—, sacred trees of the, 109.
140
INDEX.
Bull, the winged, 35.
Bunsen, Ernest de, 133,
Burnouf, M., note, 133.
Bushes, sacred, 100.
AESARIANUS, Caesar, 50.
Cailasa, la montaigne, 11.
Canticles, the, 97.
Catherine, St., of Alexandria, 45.
—, of Siena, 45.
Caumont, M. de, 25, 34, 116.
Caylus, M., 97.
Chaitya caves, the, 19.
Chardin, M., 100.
Charon, 93.
Cherubim, 28, 33, 83.
Chigiani, the Monti, 14, 16.
Chinese, the, 9, 17, 18, 22.
Chinese language, the, 23.
Christian art, subjects of, sym-
bolical, 8.
privileges, 129.
symbols, 6, 10.
theology, 132.
Christianity, remarks on, 3, 50,
123, 125, 138.
Christians, the Coptic, 14.
Christmas tree, the, 69, 95.
Church, the, 49.
Ciambelle, 77.
Circles, Druidical, 17.
City, the model of, as a symbol, 47
Clemente, St., at Rome, 74.
Colebrooke, Mr., 105.
Comarmond, M., 74.
Commedia, the Divina, quoted, 36
Conception, the Immaculate, 135.
Copenhagen, Ethnological Mu-
seum at, 9.
Corporas, the, 77.
Correspondences, Symbolical, 119,
123.
Cosma e Damiano, church of the
Sts., at Rome, 71.
Creuzer, M., 11, 121, 128, 131.
Crystál Palace, the, 75.
Crocodile, the, as a symbol, 38.
Cross, the, 13, 49, 97.
, the Manichean, 109.
Crown, the, as a symbol, 44.
Cruz-ansata, the, 14, 61, 76.
Cuttah, the caves at, 104.
Curia Romana, the, 38.
Cybele, or the Earth, 35.
Cynocephalus, the, 39.
Cyril of Alexandria, 9.
DA. HOPA, the, described,
20. -
Daniel, the lions of 34.
Dante Allighieri.
—, the Paradise of (canto vi.),
37.
—, the festival of, at Florence,
137
, discovery of the bones of,
at Ravenna, 137.
, the Trinity of, 134.
Dead, resurrection of the, 21.
, ritual of the, 126.
DEITY, fundamental doctrine of,
among the Egyptians, 26.
Dendera, the Zodiac of, 31, 85.
Dharmina, 107.
Didron, M., 41.
Diu-dar tree, the, 109.
Divina Commedia quoted, 15, 36,
71, 76, 122, 129, 134, 136.
Divine Nature, conceptions of the,
119.
J)ivus, whence derived, 42.
Dodona, the oak of 90.
Donnet, Cardinal, 137.
Dove, as a symbol, 43.
Dractefasels, 100.
Druids, the British, 16, 88, 93,
109, 116.
Durandus, 42.
AGLE, the, 37.
Eas, or Es, 91.
JEddas, the, 86.
Eden, the Garden of, its meaning,
96.
Egypt, the Pyramids of, vii, ix, 21.
Egyptian doctrines, their corres-
pondence with the Christian,
123.
INDEX.
141
Egyptians, funeral rites of the,
21.
—, primitive temples of
the, 27.
, architecture of the, 30.
, their character as a
religious people, 124. -
, moral code of the, 125.
Eleusis, the mysteries of, 121.
Emblems, what, 6.
—, their difference from
symbols and types, 7.
Ephesus, the Council of, 9.
Esus, 91.
Eternity and time, remarks on,
111.
Eureus, the, 28.
Eyangelists, symbols of the, 45,
73
Evangelium in the British Mu-
seum, 73.
Ewald, 14.
Ezekiel, the prophet, 13.
ALCO Nisus, the, 62.
Felis Family, the, 35.
Fergusson, Mr., 102.
Ficus-sycamorus, the, 60, 64.
Fig-tree, Nicodemus under the,
102.
Fir, the Indian, 110.
Fountain, the Undar, 86.
France, the Senate of, 137.
(Fº S., church of, at
Blanc, 19.
Genlis, Madame de, 118.
Ghost, the Holy, feminine in
some Trinities, 135.
Ginn, the, note, 18.
God, dogma of the Mother of, 9.
—, early Hebrew name for,
note, 90, 115.
, early notion of, among the
Hebrews, 128.
, the Lamb of 73.
Good and Evil, tree of the know-
ledge of, 57.
Gotama, 108.
Greek art, and what it embodied,
4–6.
— orders, symbolism of the, 5.
Greeks, early theological notions
of the, 24, 121.
Griffin, symbolism of the, 75.
Groves, sacred, 97.
Guigniaut, M., 11.
AOMA, 115.
Hasselquist on the Sycamore
tree, 65. -
Biathor, note, 9.
Hawkins, Mr. 50.
Hay, Mr., on the harmonic law
of nature, 52.
Heaven, the Queen of 134.
, Petrarca on the, 15.
Hebrew Scriptures, the, 22, 127,
129.
|Heraclitus, 24.
Heron, the, its symbolical mean-
ing, 22, 64.
Herrick, the poet, 92.
Hesus, 91.
Hindu faith, the, 104.
|Hom, the, 115, 116, 117.
Horus, 24, 33.
Hostia, the, 42.
Hwang-teen, 18. ,
BIS, the sacred, 64.
India and Japan, sacred trees
in, 104.
Isaiah vi. 13, remarks on, 117.
Isis and Horus, 9.
AINA, 108.
Jambu tree, 109.
Janua ecclesiae, the, 60.
Jehovah, as a God of battles, 91.
Job, 22.
Jones, Sir William, note, 106.
Jupiter, 36.
EATING, Colonel, on Sacred
Trees, 118.
Kelts, the, 16, 88.
Rircher, 14.
142
INDEX.
Klaproth, M., 18.
Knife, as a symbol, 3.
L TERAN, St. John, at Rome,
71.
——, Museum of the, 77.
Law, Bishop, 128.
Leo, the sign of, 33.
Leones, inter, the meaning of 34.
Lepsius, 61, 63, 65, 67, etc.
LIFE and LIGHT, ix, 10, 41.
—, the bread of, 7, 77, 80.
—, the water of, 7.
—, the tree of, 57, 58, 69, 70,
72, 78, 79, 84, 103, 114.
—, the word of 116.
and Love, 41.
Light, as a symbol, 10, 40.
, intellectual, 19.
Lily, the, as a symbol, 47.
Lingam symbols, l 1, 12.
Lion, the, as a symbol, 35.
and Unicorn, the, 36.
Lions, the mouths of, 33.
of Daniel, 34.
Lizard, the, as a symbol, 25.
Aoyos, the, 18, 131, 132.
Lotus plant, as a symbol, 32.
Love, as the Holy Ghost, il primo
amore, 43. -
Lupa, the, 38.
Luxor, the temple at, 127.
Lyons, the Musée Lapidaire at,
74, 75.
ADONNA and Child, the, 9.
Mahawanso, the, note, 108.
Mandorla, the, 44.
Mark's, St., at Venice, 75.
Masigny, church at, 116. -
Matthew, St., the Aramaean Gos-
pel of, note, 135.
Maurice, the Rev. J. D., on the
Aoyos of Philo, note, 132.
Maut, 121, 134. &
Mautmes, 127.
May-pole, the, 118, 119.
Maya, the Indian, 87.
Michael, the Archangel, 25.
Milton, 11.
Misletoe, the sacred, 92, 93.
Mithras, 33.
Mogadore, the sacred Arayel at,
118.
Morrison,0hinese dictionary of 18
Moses, 2, 7, 13, 28, 29, 37, 126.
Mycene, the gate at, 33.
ACKAS, the, 114.
Nakedness, as a symbol, 48.
Neith, the goddess, 121, 134.
Netpe, 65, 66, 103.
Niflheim, 86.
Nimbus, the, 42, 43.
Nirvana, what, 107.
Noah, the ark of, 12.
Norns, the three, 86.
Numbers, the gender of, 18.
AK, the sacred, 88.
Oak, symbol of the, among the
Druids, 90.
and Oath, 89.
Oaks, remarks on, 89.
Obelisk, of what symbolical, 12.
Odin, 91.
One and Two, remarks on, vii.
Order of things, the Divine, 122.
Orders, the Greek, 5.
, the Egyptian, 31.
Ormuzd, 36, 115.
Orphaeus, the Theology of, 108.
Osiridian monuments, 21.
Osiris, 15, 23, 24, 49, 59, 103,124.
, the worship of, 20.
, his attributes, 21.
, the good principle, 32.
and Isis, 15.
Ostensoir, the, 42.
Ouseley, Sir William, remarks of,
on the date tree, 103.
ADMA, 11.
Palm branch, the, 6.
Palm tree, the, 31.
Palmette, the, 68.
Parvati, the Indian, 21, 87.
INDEX.
143
Paul the Hermit, 35.
Peacock, symbolism of the, 74.
Persia, sacred trees in, 101.
Persica, the, 70.
Phenomenal Symbolism of Deity,
129
Philo of Alexandria, 2, 131, 135,
139.
Phaenix dactilifera, the, 63, 69,
and note, 71.
Pine cone, the, 68.
Pliny on Sacred Trees, 99.
Poèr, the tomb of, at Thebes, 59.
Poets, the Hebrew, 129.
— the first descriptive theo-
logians, 121.
Preston, church at, 26.
Psalm xxix., remarks on, 101.
Pylon, the, in temples, 27.
Pyramids, the ancient Egyptian,
21.
UERCUS Ilex, 90.
— Robur, 90.
AMESES III., 59.
Ravenna, the cathedral at, 77.
—, Museo Archivescovile
at, 74.
Regeneration, Oriental doctrine
of, 20.
Religion, history and theory of,
110, 112, 138.
Religious idea, developement of
the, 125.
Réville, M. Albert, 138.
Reynaud, M., 115.
Rome, St. Peter's at, 29.
Rosellini, 21, 32, 59.
Rougé, the Count Emanuel de,
note, 9, 23, 32, 33, 59, 120.
ABINA, Santa, at Rome, 14.
Saints, Christian, and their
symbols, 7.
Saints, particular symbols of, 45,
3 * ~ *
, distinguishing symbols
of 46.
Saints, physiognomies of the, 46.
Salt, Mr., 101.
Satan, the, of Scripture, 32.
Scarabaeus, the, 39.
Science, true, in what it consists,
123
Scrolls, as symbols, 47.
Scripture Symbolism, 127.
Selden, 29.
Sens, the ivory tabernacle at, 75.
Sermon on the Mount, the, 138.
Serpent, symbolism of the, 37.
Serpents, remarks on, 38.
Seth, 32, 78.
Sev, or Saturn, 63.
Sexual principle in Symbolism, 11.
Shakespeare, 34.
Shang-te, 18.
Sharpe, Mr., 124, 127.
Shylock, the Jew, 34.
Sibyls, the, 47.
Siva, 11, 12, 21, 23, 104, 106.
Sommerard, M. de, 25.
Soul, the, according to the Greeks,
24
Souls, Saviour of, among the
Egyptians, 124.
Sparrow-hawk, the, 26.
Sphinx, the sacred, 35.
Stimate, the, 45.
Stukeley, Dr., 93, 98.
– on Isaiah vi. 13, 117.
Sugats, the, 109.
Sun and Moon in Symbolism, 15.
Supernatural, remarks on the, 136.
, sources of the, 137.
Sword, the, as a symbol, 7.
Sydenham, the Egyptian court
at, 28.
Symbolism, the origin of 3.
, meaning of, 7, 8,
, fundamental principles
of, 10.
—, progressive among the
Hebrews, 130.
Symbols, meaning of, 6.
, Chinese, 17.
º, Christian, general, and
special, 7, 42, 43.
144
INDEX.
Trinity of Dante, 134.
of Bossuet, note, 132.
of Life and Light and
Love, 43.
in Unity, symbolism of
the, 9.
Types, 7.
Typhon, 32.
UN ſº the, 36.
Unity and duality, vii.
Ursula, St., 44.
EDAS, the, 104.
Virgin and Child, the, 9.
Virgin Mary, figures of the, 15,
19, 26.
Virgin Queen of Heaven, 15, 134.
Vishnu, 12, 104.
Vitruvius, 50.
ARBURTON on the descent
of Æneas to the infernal
regions, 94.
Water, as a symbol, 7.
Weber, Dr. Albert, 105.
White, Mr., in the Ecclesiologist,
51, 52.
Wilkinson, Sir Gardner, 14, 23,
25, 31, 59, and note, 124.
Willis, Brown, 50.
Winchester, the font at, 76.
Wolves, the symbolism of, 000.
Word, the, 131, note, 132, 133.
Xºrs and the plane tree,
99. :
ANG, the, 17.
Yin, the, 17.
Yoni, the, 12.
York, the ceremony at, in refer-
ence to the misletoe, 94.
END-AVESTA, the, 115, 133.
Zoroaster, 115.
Symbols, Egyptian, 20, 28.
, Indian, 11, 17.
—, Japanese, 103.
TAlºns ACLE of Moses, the,
28.
Tamul tribes, the, 105.
Taou, the, 18, and note, 87.
Taou-jin, the, 18.
Tau, the, 13, 16.
Taou-tsze, 18.
Tee, the, 20.
Téen-hwang, 41.
Teen-tsze, 41.
Tenenos, the, 27.
Tetragrammaton, the, vi.
Tharamis, 91.
Thau, 16, 17.
Theological idea, developement
of the, 110.
Thor, 16.
Thoth, 25.
Three, remarks on, vii, viii, 132.
Tien-how, the Chinese Queen of
Heaven, 9.
Tree, sacred, of the Hebrews, 83.
Trees, as symbols, 96, 97.
TREES, SACRED, 83, 84.
Triangle, the equilateral, 7, 11,
23, 49, 64.
Trilithic system, the, vii.
Trimurti, the, 12, 104, 109, and
note, 87.
Trinity, the Hindu, 12, 22.
, the Scandinavian, 16, 91.
, the Chinese, 23, and note
87.
, the Egyptian, 120.
, with remarks on, 120,
137.
, the Keltic, 91.
, the Arian, 131.
, doctrine of the Athana-
sian, 134. 3.
Trinity of Theophilus, Bishop of
Antioch, note, 131.
STEPHEN AUSTIN, PRINTER, HERTFoRD.

THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
DATE DUE
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