| Monumental Christianity; or, The art and symbolism of the primitive church.CHAPTER XIV. resurrection: life everlasting - 4 |
Page 5 of 5 We shall better understand this fable of the Phoenix, as used by some of the Christian Fathers to illustrate the doctrine of the Resurrection and Eternal Life, by referring to the express account of it given by Herodotus, When he was in Egypt, he was told that the Phcenix was of great rarity, only coming there once in 500 years, when it dies and another appears. It is reported to be like the eagle, and of a red and golden plumage. But he never saw one, except in pictures, (ii. 73.) Or we may consult Pliny, who says : •* It surpasses all other birds; but I do not know if it be fable that there is only one in the whole world, and that sel- dom seen. According to report, it is the size of an eagle, of a gold colour about the neck, the rest being purple, its tail blue, varied with red feathers, its face and head covered with rich plumage, with a tuft on top. It is sacred to the sun ; lives 660 years ; when old it dies in its aromatic nest, and produces a worm out of which the young Phoenix rises ; and carries its nest to the altar of the temple at Heliopolis, in Egypt. The revolution of the great year corresponds with the life of this bird, in which the seasons and stars return to their first places.'* (x. 2.) The story of the Phoenix rising from its ashes, must be a later invention, for no account of it appears in the above statements, unless it be implied in Tertullian's. And Tacitus says ** That the opinions vary as to the number of the years, the most common one be- ing this, that it is 500 years, though some make it 1461 years." {Ann. VI. 28.) The fact is that no such bird as the Phoenix ever existed ; it was only one of the constellations in the old Egyptian Zodiac. It has been identified by the labo- rious researches of Mr. R. S. Poole, assisted by the astronomer royal of England, Mr. Airy, as the bird of Osiris, or Osir, so often invoked by the souls in Hades for their deliverance, as the Book of the Dead shows us. The Phoenix is the Benno^ the Swan of the Greeks, the Eagle of the Romans, and I may add the Peacock of the Hindus, as the symbol of immortality in the heavens. In the Egyptian constella- ¦ Pi Res, Car,, c. 13. * Works, II. pp. 214-19, Ante-Niane Lib,^ voL aa. Resurrection: Life Everlasting, tion of the Phoenix or Benno, Sothis, or Sirius, or the Dog-star, was the most conspicuous, the brightest star in the whole heavens, even brighter than the sun by 300 times, and greater in bulk by 2,CXX) times, according to Mr. Proctor, though from its great distance it does not so appear. When this Dog-star marked the Summer solstice, it was the period of the new year, i, e., the great year or cycle of 146 1 years, when the stars and planets returned to the same place as at first ; and it was then, or about the time of the summer solstice, also, that the Nile began to rise, which is the very life of Egypt. This Phoenix cycle of 1461 years was discovered, not long since, on the ceiling of the Memnonium at Thebes, and was identified there as the Benno, or Osir, of Osiris. It signified, like the great Sothic and other less periods and cycles, the beginning and the ending of all things, — the end of all the round of human life, and the beginning of a new era, both occurring together, as in the death and birth of the fabulous Phoenix. Mr. Poole says: "Sothis, the Dog-Star, was considered as sacred to both powers of nature, Osiris with Isis as the Good Power, and Typhon as the Evil Power; since at the time of its rising they were considered as conflicting; for the Nile then began to show the first symptoms of rising, and, at the same time, the great heat was parching up the cultivated soil."' The Benno, then, was the sign of the constellation in which the Dog- star rose to mark a new era and a new year together : just as when the star or conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in the Constellation of the Fishes marked the Advent of Christ. This Benno is a bird of the crane or heron species; and one can be seen on the sarcophagus of the Fisherman, standing before our Lord, assisting him to fish. (Fig. 50.) We have this Benno, also, sitting in the Tamarisk or holy tree, over the tomb of Osiris, as if watching and waiting for the happy time to arrive when Osiris would come forth from his long imprisonment. It is here given, from Wilkinson,' (Fig. 194,) who says of it: "The tamarisk was a holy tree, from having been chosen to over- shadow the sepulchre of Osiris, in commemoration of the chest containing his body having lodged in the branches of one of these trees, on the coast of Byblus, where. Fig. Z94.— Phoenix or Beano over the tomb of Osiris. * flora j^gyptiaca^ p. 35. Lond., 1851. *Atut, Egypt., V. 262. 424 Monumental Christianity. driven ashore by the waves of the sea, it was discovered by Isis. The tree is rep- resented in the sacred chamber dedicated to that god at Philae, and in a small sepulchre at How. (Diospolis parva.) It is in this latter that the bird Benno is seated in its branches, accompanied by the name of Osiris, of whom it was an emblem : and in the former chamber of the god at Philae two priests are seen watering the tree. This confirms in a remarkable manner the account of Plutarch, who, in describing " the tomb of Osiris at Philae, crowned with flowers at the solemnization of his funeral rites by the priests," says, " it is overshadowed by the branches of a tamarisk tree, whose size exceeds that of an olive." ' Flowers still adorn Christian coffins and graves, and willow trees droop their graceful branches over them, in token of resurrection and future life ; but surely they are not now used by Pagan Egyptian priests or people. They have become most Christian, like a good many other innocent and suggestive customs of ancient Paganism. There is good reason to think that the tamarisk, from its hardness and durability, like our best cedar, was used by Moses in making the* Hebrew ark of the Covenant, as the repository of the sacred things. My own palmer stafT, cut in the jungle of the Jordan, near Jericho, is part of a small tamarisk, worth more than its weight in gold. " There can be no doubt," says Mr. Poole, " that the Benno is the Phoenix, or the constellation partly or wholly corresponding with the Cygnus, and, perhaps, also with the Aquila." • Rawlinson does not hesitate to adopt this view of the matter, even in rejecting Wilkinson's theory of another bird with human head and hands as the Phcenix. He says: ** It is evident that Mr. Poole is right in consid- ering the Benno, the bird of Osiris, the true Phoenix.'* " Wilkinson's bird simply marked the period of the soul's separate existence in Hades, which was 3,000 years; while the Phcenix or Benno represents and marks the new era of regenerate life. The great Phcenix cycle seems to have been fixed about the time of Abraham's visit to Egypt, or more than 2,000 years B. C. ; and as Mr. Poole says : ** The Phoe- nix, that mythic bird, respecting which the learned have been at variance from the times of the Greeks and Romans to the present day, is at length identified, and the period of its appearance ascertained, and whose manifestation was celebrated on the first day of Thoth, the beginning of the Egyptian year."* This celebration was one of the principal festivals of the Egyptians. It took place at the Summer Sol- stice, when the Nile began to rise. " Men and women assembled from all parts of the country in the towns of their respective nomes; grand feasts were proclaimed, ' Am, Egypt, V. pp. 262-3. • ffara, ?• 42. ^fftfodotus, IT. p. 104, 2nd Ed. * ffora ^$ypt^ pp. 46-7. Resurrection: Life Everlasting. 425 and all the enjoyments of the table were united with the solemnity of a holy fes- tival. Music, the dance, and appropriate hymns, marked the respect they felt for the Deity."" Nearly a century before either Wilkinson or Poole wrote of the Phoenix and the Phcenix cycle, the great French astronomer, M. Bailly thus spoke of it: " It is impossible to doubt that the Phoenix is an emblem of a solar revolution, which revives in the moment it expires. If any one questions the truth of this, he will find the proof of it in those authors who assign to the Phoenix a life of 1,461 years, u ^., the time of the Sothic period, or of a revolution of a great solar year of the Egyptians."" But it was reserved for Mr. Poole to discover and verify the fact of it. and to ascertain the Phoenix period from the Zodiac of the Memnonium at Thebes. The prose Edda of the Norsemen make» the sun itself a sort of Phoenix, when it speaks of the conflagration of the universe, on this wise: '' But what thou wilt deem more wonderful is, that the sun shall have brought forth a daughter more lovely than herself, who shall go in the same track formerly trodden by her mother. As it is said : "Theiadiantsim A daughter bean, Ere Fenrir takes her. On her mother's coone Shall ride that maid, When the gods have perished."' We also find the Phoenix in the Arabian tale of Sinbad the Sailor, in that monstrous bird which picked up elephants and carried them to her nest to feed her young, a picture of which Lane has given in his beautiful edition of the Arabian Nights.* It was the Rokh or Oriental anka and seemurghy and like our own eagle, but much larger, of which it is said " that when the young anka has grown up, if it be a female, the old female bird burns herself; and if a male, the old male bird does so. This reminds us of the Phoenix." It would seem, therefore, that this fable of the Phoenix was once universal ; and if the fathers of the Primitive Church used it to illustrate the doctrine of the Resurrection and Everlasting Life, they are not now to be derided by religious bigots, whose ignorance is only surpassed by their pious intolerance, and whose zeal for a party or for themselves outruns all discretion. When these fathers had before * Wilkinson's Anct Egypt^ V. pp. 291-2. • History of Asia, pp. 214-15. • •Mallett's Northern Antiquities, p. 458, Bohn's Ed. * Vol III. pp 16, 86 7. New Ed, 426 Mofiumental Christianity. them such conjectures about the meaning of the Phcenix as Pliny*s ; and above all, when they read the Psalms and the Book of Job, as they most likely did in the prevalent Greek version, always cited by Christ and His Apostles instead of the original Hebrew, and therefore having the sanction of their use and authority ; and when they found the Phoenix mentioned there as an illustration of the present h'fe succeeded by eternal life, they might surely use it for the same purpose. For that just, upright, and sorely-afflicted man, Job, says : ''I shall die in my nest, and I shall multiply my days like the Phoenix." (xxix. i8.) The Greek word is qfolvtS, as it is in Psalm xcii. 12. As I before remarked, this word also means a palm- tree, and TitvQT ^* sand*' \ but as the palm-tree is very long-lived, and is itself a symbol of glorious immortality often used on early Christian monuments, the meaning is the same. Wilkinson says this of it : ^* In the time of Herodotus, as the learned Larcher observes, the notion of the Phcenix rising from its ashes had not yet been enter- tained. Suidas, who flourished about the tenth century, states, that from its ashes issued a worm which changed itself into a Phcenix; and the early fathers of the Greek and Latin Church availed themselves of this accredited fable as a proof of the resurrection. But though the story of its rising from its ashes may have been a late invention, the Phcenix itself was of very ancient date, being found on monu- ments erected about the commencement of the eighteenth dynasty. And we even find mention of this long-lived bird in the book of Job. This, at least, is the opinion of Bede, who, in accordance with the Septuagint translation of the word we render ' sand^' reads as above. Dr. Prichard, Gesenius, and others, adopt the same interpretation of the passage.*'* Charles Thompson, the American translator of the Septuagint, renders the passage thus : " Therefore I said, my youth shall advance to old age. Like the stock of a palm, I shall live long." (Job, xxix. 18.) On the early Christian monuments the same idea of the Phoenix as a symbol of the Resurrection and Everlasting Life, is transferred to the Peacock, from a notion then prevalent that its flesh was imputrescent, as well as for the splendour of its plumage, which it renews every spring; and more especially from the mag- nificence of its tail full of the eyes of the dead, according to an old fable. St. Augustine says of the flesh of the Peacock: "Who but God the Creator of all things has given to the flesh of the Peacock its antiseptic property? This prop- erty, when I first heard of it, seemed to me incredible ; but it happened at Carthage that a bird of this kind was cooked and served up to me, and, taking a suitable ^Ane. Egypt, IV. pp. 305-6, Resurrection: Life Everlasting. slice of flesh from its breast, I ordered it to be kept, and when it had been kept as many days as make other flesh stinking, it was produced and set before me, and emitted no offensive smell. And after it had been laid by for thirty days and more, it was still in the same stage ; and a year after, the same still, except that it was a little more shrivelled, and drier." * This was a long experiment in practical philos- ophy, and it ought to be tried again, to verify St. Augustine's statement. I do not know whether Hindustan had any influence on Christian art in the Fiu. 195.— Saraswati and Uie Peacock. adoption of the Peacock as the symbol of a glorious immortality; but the fact is that the Peacock figures in its mythology as the attribute of Brahma's consort, Saraswati^ the Minerva or wisdom of heaven and earth. She rides a Peacock, just as Agni rides a ram. (Fig. 195.) Near the close of the tenth chapter of the tenth book of the7?i]g* Veda, occurs this passage respecting Saraswati : " I uphold both the sun and the ocean, the firmament and fire. I support the moon. I grant wealth to the honest votary who performs sacrifices, offers oblations, and satisfies the deities. * De Civ, Dei,, lib. xxi. c. 4. 428 Monumental Christianity. Me, who am the queen of heaven, the bestower of wealth, the possessor of knowl- edge, and first of such as merit worship, the gods render universally present every- where, and pervader of all beings. I make strong whom I choose ; I make him Brahma, holy and wise. Originating all beings, I pass like the breeze; I am above this heaven, beyond this earth ; and what is the great one, that I am." * Colebrooke gives this citation from one o{ \,\i^ Puranas respecting this goddess: . *' Thou art called she who promotes growth ; regent of air with 35,000,000 of holy places in the sky, on earth, and in the space between ; among the gods thou art named the lotos; able, bird, body of the universe, female cherisher of science, cheerful, merciful, consoler, giver of consolation, &c." " In the Christian cemeteries at Rome, there are several examples of the Peacock as the symbol of all that wisdom, which is the fear and love of God, that shall never die. One is here reproduced from Bosio.* (Fig. 196.) It is a fresco, in one of the arcosolia of the cemetery of Priscilla. No. i represents this arcosolium, or niche. No. 2 is the Good Shepherd and His flock, in which two cocks are seen as emblems of watchfulness. No. 3 is the Orante Bride of Christ, veiled. No. 4 is the Peacock, with tail spread. And No. 5 is Noah in a font, adorned with three lions' heads, emblematic of the Trinity. In* another example the Peacock is seen so standing on a globe, as if to intimate its supremacy over it.* But here the grouping is ob- vious, at a glance, in its deep significance. The Peacock is encircled and between the Church and its Baptismal symbol of Regeneration and the Resurrection, to denote everlasting life in God and in His blessed Heaven, obtained for all His people. His Jewish and Gentile flock, by the Good Shepherd through their prayer and watchfulness. De Rossi, also, has discovered other examples of the Peacock in the Christian cemeteries at Rome, of which he gives two, in colored lithographic engravings.* From these early cemeteries, the Peacock was transferred to the East, and ap- pears in the first Byzantine churches; as for instance, in St. George's Thessalonica, in the mosaics of the dome, as given in colour by Texier and Pullan.* So then it is to be concluded, that the Phcenix and the Peacock had some precious significance to the early Christians, beyond the mere fables that had grown up around these birds in Paganism, even the cherished hope and longing for the Resurrection and Everlasting Life. And here I end my work, in the same hope and expectation. The survey of religion has here been a varied one, but not without finding a common principle « Moor's Hindu Pantheon, p. 128, and plate 45- * Essays, I. p. 137. * Rom. Sott., p. 531. ^Rom, Sott,, p. 557. • Rom, Sott., II. plates 27 and 28. • Byzantine Architecture, pi. 30. Resurrection: Life Everlasting. of unity. The comparison between Christianity and Paganism, in the use of symbols, leaves no regret for the superiority of our holy and blessed religion over all others. The fine grains of gold washed down to us from the wild mountains, by the turbid and rushing streams of Pagan idolatry, are pre- cious evidences that all religion had its origin in the everlasting Hills be- yond. Larger and more valuable crystals and lumps of this gold gleam among the rocky hills of Judea ; but it was reserved for Christianity as the rightful owner of all the gold and silver of Truth, to mine, and gather up, and assay, and coin this precious metal to enrich the world. Without this, the world would be poor indeed. From all this monu- mental evidence, in Pa- ganism, Judaism, and Christianity, as to the main elements and essen- tials of all Faith and Re- ligion, I conclude with hese twelve deductions : I. That religion, as distinct from mere poetry, art, science, and philosophy, has been and is now a fact, among all civilized people, in every age of the world's history. 430 Monumental Christianity. II. That this reh'gion is essentially one in faith and practice, under various modifications, perversions, corruptions, and developments. III. That this unity of religion has had its origin in the human mind and soul, as deriving all their thought, hope, and aspiration from some common Source of mind and soul. IV. That, as like produces like, in all other departments of the uni- verse with which we are acquainted, mind and soul cannot originate from matter. V. That, therefore, all mind, soul, thought, and rational emotion, must have had their origin in some corresponding Intelligence, distinct from matter, which In- telligence made all things, and man himself. VI. That Christianity is a clearer, simpler, purer, and more rational embodi- ment of religious thought and fact, and more refined in its worship, than either the Jewish, or any of the Pagan religions. VII. That, therefore, Christianity is the superior of all other religions, and must have originated with some Superior Being, whose name it bears; and if superior, then that Being came from God as His Wisdom, to make known, demon- strate, and embody that Religion, as the final answer to all human inquiry, hope, thought, and aspiration, hitherto contained in other forms and phases of Religion. VIII. That Christianity itself, to be of any avail and benefit to mankind, must be embodied in some compact system, not only for preservation, but also for pro- pagation and development. IX. That this system is a well-organized Church, cotemporaneous and coex- tensive with Christianity itself. X. That this Church must be one, and have one and the same Author as Chris- tianity itself. XI. That, therefore, the Church in its Teaching, Sacraments, Administration, and Discipline, is of co-ordinate benefit and authority with Christianity, as one and inseparable, as national and universal. XII. And finally, that both Christianity and the Church are for a good purpose in the accomplishment of human welfare, here and hereafter ; and that both Christianity and the Church shall be merged into something else, when that purpose is finally attained, even the Life Everlasting, when this world and its sin, suffering, and sorrow, with Death and Amenti, Sheol and Hades or hell, are abolished. Go forth, little book, and the favour of God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost go with thee, child of my love, care, and anxious thought through all these years Resurrection: Life Everlasting. 431 of toil and study ; 1 know not what shall befall thee ; but speak a word for the faith and love of God in Christ to His Church of Jew and Gentile, when thy father s voice is silent, ^^Jlnd fai[fh6t[, b9 theea, mg $on» be admoniahed: of maMng mang boohs tboiia i$ no end : and much $iud9 is a wsattinesa to iba flaab. 'Uzi ua baait iba oonoluaion of iba wbola maiiaq : T{^\ ({lod, and baap Via torn- mandmania ; foit ibia ia iba wbola duis of man. 7<^ii (flod aball bi|ins avai(9 . Dvoitb Inio judnmanii wlib ava^ saoaitt ibing, wbaibati M ba good, oi| wbaibaii it ba avil." EicUs. ziL 19-14. |