| Monumental Christianity; or, The art and symbolism of the primitive church - 5 |
Page 6 of 6 Now the human mind, occupied with observations of the material and sensible world, forms certain ideas, and draws certain conclusions respecting its powers and operations, which constitute its ideal world, or the realm of thought and opinion. And this is distinct from the soul itself, which is simply the thinking and emotional faculty or power. And thus making a distinction between itself and its thought, it concludes that there must be a distinction between the universe and the Power that made it a mere exponent of Itself, a system of Divine thought and wisdom. Hence the symbol has a like double nature, — it embodies thought in a visible form, and it implies the Power and Source of thought. In other words, there are Divine symbols in nature and in religion of this two-fold kind, embodying Divine thought, and pointing to the living Source of thought; so that when we see or hear the symbol, we not only catch the thought at once, but also rise to a conception of the thinking Power implied by it. The symbol can do no more than signify that Power; it can not contain and embody it. If the universe can not contain and confine God, any more than a watch can contain and confine the watchmaker, no more can a religious symbol of any kind be presumed to do this ; when it is, the proper limits are trespassed, and error, and confusion, and vagueness are the result. The symbol then becomes an image and an idol, like Agni or the Sphinx, grotesque and misleading. It becomes, too, utterly unworthy of the Being signified, and an insult to His nature. . It is a mere caricature of God, the chief sin of all idolatry. When the symbol attempts to localize God on an altar under the form of bread and wine, I can see no difference between it and fixing God to an image like Agni ; but when God takes human nature to Himself to teach mankind through it how to rise to God-like purity, nobility, and holiness, I can see no difference between that Incarnation, and the exponent of His wisdom and power in the material Introductory: Symbols. 23 universe, except a difference in degree, on the score of personality, greater clear- ness, niercy, and love. If the sacramental and symbolic veil of bread and wine also veils another body, which body in turn veils Divinity, what a complication and confusion there are of things that should be plain, clear, and obvious! It is worse than German transcendentalism or Oriental Pantheism. It is so very mystic as to be of no practical value. How can the finite fully and properly represent the Infinite? It can represent His wisdom, power, and love, but not Himself. Hence all images of God were denied to the Hebrews, and were never used by early Christians. Properly speaking, then, the symbol is used to express pure and sublime ideas of God, as clearly and concisely as possible. It is the root, trunk, and flower of all figurative representation of idea and thought.* It is obvious and plain. It differs from allegory in this respect, which represents one thing and means another. The symbol means only what it represents. There is nothing spontaneous and intuitive in the allegory: it needs explanation. The symbol requires but a glance to com- prehend its meaning. The allegory is allied with the myth ; the symbol with fact. The allegory is complicated; the symbol is unique. The allegory is a luxurious plant with many branches ; the symbol is a half-opened rosebud containing the beautiful flower.' The allegory is artificial, the symbol natural. Perspicuity and precision make the law of the symbol ; mystery and indistinctness that of the alle- gory. Greek art was simple, natural, and symbolical ; Asiatic and Egyptian art was complicated, unnatural, and allegorical. The Divine symbols of the Greeks expressed grace, beauty, and majesty ; those of the Orientals stiffness, ugliness, and grotesqueness. Early Christianity followed the Greek models, as it adopted the Greek language; mediaeval Christianity followed the Oriental and Byzantine. The ideal of Christ by the one was the beautiful and young Apollo; that of the other was the old, and gloomy, the painful Christ of the crucifix. The difference between the symbol and the myth is thus defined by that profound and accurate thinker on the subject, C. O. Miiller : ** Ancient Greece possessed only two means of representing and communicating ideas of Deity — the Mythus and the Symbol, The mythus relates an action^ by which the Divine Being reveals Himself in His power and individuality: the symbol renders it visible to the sense, by means of an object placed in connection therewith. Both must have co-existed with a belief in the gods from the very beginning. The symbol is an external visible sign, with which a spiritual emotion, feeling, or idea is connected. The mythic representation can never rest upon arbitrary choice of expression ; and so, too, the connection of an idea with a sign in Symbolism, was natural and necessary to the ancient world ; ' Creuzer's Religions De L'Antiquit/, par J. D. Guigniaut, vol. I, p. 28, Int. Paris, 1835. • I Id. &c., pp. 30- 1. 24 Monumental Christianity. it cccurred involuntarily ; and the essence of the symbol consists in this supposed connection of the sign with the thing signified. Symbols in this sense are evidently coeval with the human race; they result from the union of the soul with the body of man ; nature has implanted the feeling for them in the human heart. The human face expresses spiritual peculiarities ; and so all nature wore to the ancients a physiognomical aspect." Worship, which represented the feelings of the Divine in visible, external actions, was in its nature thoroughly symbolical ; and he in- stances prayer and sacrifice especially.* The symbol differs from the vatx^ figure or image in this respect, that the figure is an arbitrary representation of an idea, not imposed by any Divine authority, or revealed in Scripture, but of human choice, a mere creature of the imagination. The symbols proper of Christ are the cross, the lamb, and the lion ; He is figured by the fish, the pelican, and the vine. Did- ron says that the symbol is a Divine creation, a revelation from God; the figure is of human invention. The water of baptism, and the Eucharistic bread and wine, are signs or symbols. In the Eucharist, water could not take the place of wine, nor in baptism could wine be substituted for water ; for the symbol is one and the same, invariable and eternal. On the contrary, one figure may take the place of another very properly; the vine, whose juice is for man's nourishment, may take the place of the pelican, which gives her blood for her young.* We must gather the sense and use the word symbol as employed among the pagan Greeks and Romans. In general, it is any sign, mark, token, or signal by which one knows or infers a thing, as a pledge or beacon fire, or in the plural, tallies, as of two pieces of bone or coin which two contracting parties held as evi- dence of their contract. At Athens, the symbol was a cheque or ticket, used at court to obtain fees ; or it was a license or permit given to foreigners to reside there. It was also a ticket at a pleasure party or picnic, previously purchased and given at the close of it in payment. Then, again, it was a die for playing with, the Latin tessera^ some of which have been found in the Catacombs at Rome by Bol- detti,* with the boxes to throw them. Hence the term to throw or cast, or bring together. Then it was used for any square piece of stone, or wood, or other sub- stance, on which a watchword or word of command was written, or a tablet by which friends recognized each other, or a watchword alone. In this last sense, Christianity adopted it for the expression of her faith to distinguish friend from foe, or pretender or heretic, and applied it to her creeds and sacraments, as the outward signs of her belief. Treaties of commerce between the Grecian States * Introduction to a ScienHfic System of Mythology , pp. X96-8, ^ Iconographie Chritienne, p. 350. Paris, 1 843. • Osscrvazioni sofra I Ccmiteti. &i*., pt. II. p. 447. Introductory: Symbols. 25 were called symbols; and a (rvjifSoXoi was a meeting, assembly, or coming together of any number of people. In this sense, the celebration of the holy Eucharist is symbolical of the coming together of the Church on earth, with the General Assem- bly and Church of the First Born in heaven, and of God and man, and of Christian men with one another, in the exercise of charity. Chrysostom, in his commentary on the gospel of St. Matthew, in speaking of the water of life at the well of Samaria, says it was not the water of that well which signifies it, but the life-giving blood, and the symbol of death, but the cause of life. {Qavarov itrtl ffv/Jt/SoXov dXXd Zoorji yiyovev airtov.y In speaking of the gift of the Holy Ghost, he says that many great and wonderful symbols remain to us of it, such as the deliverance of a soul. dead in sins from de- struction, which is effected in baptism. But he says, ** Without the earnest of the Spirit, neither baptism avails anything ; nor can there be any remission of sin, nor justification, nor sanctification ; neither can we receive the adoption of the sons of God, nor appreciate the mysteries : for there can be no mystical body and blood without the grace of the Spirit ; the priests have it not, nor is it possible that these things could have been constituted and ordained' without such descent of the Spirit. But I have many other things to say of the symbols of this grace of the Spirit." • This is clear as to baptism and the bread and wine of the Eucharist being symbols of the grace of regeneration, and of the body and Blood of Christ, whose only efficacy depends on the gift of the Holy Ghost. And still again, this father says, " As the body of Christ lay in the manger, so it is on the Holy Table ; not, indeed, as then, wrapped in swaddling clothes, but as invested with the Holy Spirit."' And again, " It is not man that makes the oblation to become the body and blood of Christ, but Christ Himself who was crucified for us. The priest stands figuring it, and repeats the words of consecration ; but the grace and virtue are God's. * TAts is my body,' he says ; and it is this word that transforms the offering." * The Greek word is pierappvO/jilSeiy which refers primarily to a meas- ured motion or rhythm, and, secondarily, to a transformation. The priest holds forth the image or figure of Christ in the bread and wine of the oblation,, which, by the words of consecration, return to their original source, in Christ, and become what He made them, viz., His mystical body and blood, by the efficacy of the Holy Spirit, which He gave to His church as an abiding Presence in His place. For we must so interpret these symbols as those of the grace of the Spirit, according to ' Montfaucon, Gaume's Ed., torn. VII., p. 132. Paris, 1837-9. ' Id. torn. II. p. 516. ' Montfaucon, Gaamc's Ed., torn. I. p. 60Q. * Id. II. pp. 453, 465. 4 26 Monumental Christianity, Chrysostom himself, as just cited above. They are spiritually Christ's body and blood, and not carnally. Chrysostom also calls the kiss of Judas Iscariot a symbol of betrayal ; and the camel's hair dress of John the Baptist the symbol of royalty and penitence, using the term symbol in its true and proper signification as a sign.' Cyril of Jerusalem uses the word rvno^y or type, when he says of the Lord's Supper, ** In the figure or type of bread is given to thee His body ; and in the figure of wine His blood." * And Augustine is very emphatic about all external sacrifice being nothing more than a sign of the inward and true sacrifice of the heart's love to God and to our neighbour.' And in his sermons on the Creed, which he defines as a symbol, he says that the symbol is so named after a certain likeness which it bears to something else ; for merchants have a symbol among themselves by which their society is held together by a bond of trust. And so the Christian society, which he was addressing, he calls a spiritual trade, whose business is that of the merchant seeking goodly pearls; (Matt. xiii. 45-46) ; and the pearl of great price is charity shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost; (Rom. v. $;) and this comes of faith as contained in the symbol or creed.* Suicer maintains that the only proper signification of the symbol is indicium or signum^ indication or sign ; and that the early Greek ecclesiastical writers used it only in this sense. These profound theologians recognized in the sacraments nothing more than symbols or visible signs, in the water of baptism, and in the bread and wine of the Lord's Supper, signifying^ and not being, regeneration, and the body and blood of Christ. Suicer cites many passages to this effect, and says that the fathers everywhere teach that the sacraments are symbols— venerable sym- bols, mystic symbols; baptism being the symbol of sanctification,and the Eucharist being the symbol of the body and blood of Christ.* Guigniaut, after speaking of the various symbols used by the pagan religionists and philosophers in their mysteries, says that their names and significations passed into the newly-born Christianity. The Primitive Church called her principal dogmas symbols, i, e,, her articles of belief reduced to formulas, as well as the signs or words which served to distinguish Christians from pagans. Then, again, certain sensible signs, certain visible acts, as tokens and pledges of an invisible salvation, such as the sacraments, &c., received the same name, accompanied most often by distinctive epithets. Christ Himself the founder of sacraments, is called the Creator of Symbols Xo rdiv ffvpt/SoXoov drj^Liovpyoiy) 3. term derived from the Greek philos- ' Montfaucon, Gaume's Ed. torn. VII. pp. 167, 895. • Catechetical Led. XXIl. 3. ^De, Civ. Dei, Lib. X. c. 5. * S^r. ccxii. lorn. V. p. X058. Mignc's Ed. • Thesaurus, art. dvufio^.oy. Introduciory : Symbols. 27 ophers; the exchange of these terms being reciprocal.* This learned editor of Creuzer goes on to say that there is a great diversity of opinion as to origin of the name of symbols as alpplied to the creeds and the sacraments of Christianity. But their origin, without doubt, must be traced to paganism. For just as the most enlightened of the pagans, failing to find in the public worship of their religion enough to satisfy the wants of their souls, formed themselves into secret associa- tions where a purer doctrine was taught, whose dogmas were confided to signs and formulas unknown to the common people, so it was with the religion of the Chris- tians, who repudiated paganism altogether, and so recognized the importance of separating themselves entirely from all that was foreign to their religion, by making the sacraments and their confessions of faith reduced to formulas, &c., the distinc- tive characteristics of their proficients. Again, other learned men claim that the term symbol passed from the ancient mysteries into the new liturgy of Christianity, under a higher acceptation, to express certain acts and words of a profound mean- ing and pithy conciseness, by which the initiated could recognize one another. For my part, I am inclined to think that all the symbols of Christianity were ordained primarily to teach pure doctrine, and that they were necessarily used to distinguish Christianity from paganism, and as signs and watchwords to discriminate between friend and foe, true and false, hypocrites and genuine Chris- tians. Vossius, in his treatise on the Three Creeds, cites Rufinus and Isidore as to the creeds being signs or tokens of distinction between true and false Christians; be- cause in the Apostles' day there were many of the circumcised Jews who feigned themselves to be Christ's Apostles for the sake of gain and their own belly, as St. Paul says, and as is referred to in the Acts of the Apostles, naming Christ, indeed, but not teaching the tradition truly. On this account, therefore, the Apostles es- tablished such a sign or token a? would enable Christians to distinguish those who taught Christ according to the Apostolic rule from others. And this sign was the creed — the faith of the Church, which Paul and Barnabas went round to establish." (Acts XV. ; Rom. xvi. 18; 2 Cor. xi. 13 ; Gal. ii. &c.) That the creed was the stan- dard of Christian truth, and an Apostolic tradition, not committed to writing, but learned by heart by the Catechumens, and a watchword to distinguish friend from foe, true from false Christians, is abundantly evident from the testimony of all an- tiquity, partially cited by Vossius, Durantus, and others.' * Creuzer's Religions, &c., torn. I. 2d part, note 2, p. 533, with the references to Suiccr, Chrysostom, &c. • G. J. Vossii, Dissertations Tret,, p. 14. Amst. 1642. •DurantiZ?^ Hitibus, &c., lib. II. c. 24. Rome, 1591. Durandi Rationale Div, Off,,\\h, IV. c 2$. Naples, 1859. 28 Monumental Christianity. The creeds and the sacraments of Christianity are so variously and fully illus- trated in the Catacombs at Rome, both by painting and sculpture, as well as in the mosaics of the earliest churches ; indeed, the whole Bible is so well interpreted by- early Christian art and symbolism, that it has long been a wonder to me that so few English writers have undertaken the work of placing them before the Christian public in England and America. If this attempt to set forth the faith as held by primitive saints and martyrs shall, in the least degree, tend to establish and verify its precious truth as of Divine orgin, the labor and weariness of long years and journeyings will be abundantly repaid. Structure of the Catacombs, 29 |