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
Under Christianity, the Virgin Mary, who, as Queen of Heaven, stands on
the crescent moon, is pictured beneath the mystic doorway, with (the God
as) a male child in her arms. See Plate xviii., copied from the woodcut
title to the Psalter of the Blessed Virgin, printed at Czenna, in old
Prussia, 1492. Like Isis, she is the mother and yet the spouse of God,
"clothed with the sun, and having the moon under her feet" (Rev. xii.
1). The upper half of the picture is very like the Assyrian scenes.
On either side is a king, Frederick III. and his son the Emperor
Maximilian, at their devotions. The alcove is of roses, an emblem of
virginity. The famous Mediaeval "Romaunt de la Rose" turns upon this.
Among the many titles given to "the Virgin" in Mediaeval times, we find
Santa Maria della Rosa, that flower being consecrated to her. Hence it
is often represented in her hand. Dante writes
"Here is the Rose,
Wherein the Word Divine was made incarnate."
In Plate xviii., the Virgin goddess is seated with the God-child in
a bower, exactly the shape of the Assyrian, composed of fruits highly
significant of sex, as has already been explained. In some Hindoo
pictures, the child is naked, having the member erect, and also making
the phallic hand, with the right forefinger erected. (Plate xiv., Fig.
14.)
In other conventional forms we have male symbols only within the female
O. This is a very numerous class. In the Fig. 3, Plate xvii., we see the
fir-tree or pine take the place of the palm-tree, and in Fig. 6, Plate
xvii., the cone. On this remarkable medal of Cyprus is a representation
of the temple of Venus at Paphos, famous even in the days of Homer.
(Odyss. viii. 862.) The worship of that divinity is said to have been
imported into Cyprus from the East. The goddess united both sexes in her
own person, and was served by castrated priests. We see here, within the
innermost sanctum of the temple, a cone as emblem of the male; and the
meaning is further pointed by the sun-emblem above, inserted within the
crescent moon.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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