Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism: With an Essay on Baal Worship, on the Assyrian Sacred "Grove," and Other Allied SymbolsInman, Thomas
Religion
Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism: With an Essay on Baal Worship, on the Assyrian Sacred "Grove," and Other Allied Symbols
Inman, Thomas
Christian art and symbolism; Symbolism
Figure 50 is copied from Lajard, Culte de Venus, plate i., fig. 2.
He states that it is from a gem cylinder in the British Museum. It
represents a male and female figure dancing before the mystic palm-tree,
into whose signification we need not enter beyond saying that it is a
symbol of Asher. Opposite to a particular part of the figures is to be
seen a diamond, or oval, and a fleur de lys, or symbolic triad. This
gem is peculiarly valuable, as it illustrates in a graphic manner the
meaning of the emblems in question and how the "lillies of France" had a
pagan origin.
Figures 51 to 60 are varions representations of the union of the four,
the arba, the androgyne, or the linga-yoni.
Figure 61. In modern Christian art this symbol is called vesica piscis,
and is sometimes surrounded with rays. It commonly serves as a sort
of framework in which female saints are placed, who are generally
the representatives of the older Juno, Ceres, Diana, Venus, or other
impersonations of the feminine element in creation. We should not feel
obliged to demonstrate the truth of this assertion if decency permitted
us to reproduce here designs which naughty youths so frequently chalk
upon walls to the disgust of the proper part of the community. We must,
therefore, have resort to a religious book, and in a subsequent figure
demonstrate the meaning of the symbol unequivocally.
Figure 62 represents one of the forms assumed by the sistrum of Isis.
Sometimes the instrument is oval, and occasionally it terminates below
in a horizontal line, instead of in an acute angle. The inquirer can
very readily recognise in the emblem the symbol of the female creator.
If there should be any doubt in his mind, he will be satisfied after
a reference to Maffei's Gemme Antiche Figurate (Rome, 1707), vol. ii.,
plate 61, wherein Diana of the Ephesians is depicted as having a body
of the exact shape of the sistrum figured in Payne Knight's work on the
remains of the worship of Priapus, etc. The bars across the sistrum show
that it denotes a pure virgin (see Ancient Faiths, second edition, Vol.
n., pp. 743-746). On its handle is seen the figure of a cat--a sacred
animal amongst the Egyptians, for the same reason that Isis was
figured sometimes as a cow--viz., for its salacity and its love for its
offspring.
Figures 63 to 66 are all drawn from Assyrian sources.
The central figure, which is probably the biblical "grove," represents
the delta, or female "door." To it the attendant genii offer the pine
cone and basket. The signification of these is explained subsequently. I
was unable at first to quote any authority to demonstrate that the pine
cone was a distinct masculine symbol, but now the reader may be referred
to Maffei, Gemme Antiche Figurate (Rome, 1708), where, in vol. iii., he
will see a Venus Tirsigera.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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