Fishes, Flowers, & Fire as Elements and Deities in the Phallic Faiths & Worship of the Ancient Religions of Greece, Babylon, Rome, India, &c.Anonymous
Religion
Fishes, Flowers, & Fire as Elements and Deities in the Phallic Faiths & Worship of the Ancient Religions of Greece, Babylon, Rome, India, &c.
Anonymous
Phallicism
"Fish" says Moule, "have often been made the vehicle of religious
instruction, and for this purpose all the fine arts have been put in
requisition. Amongst many pictures by the first masters in which the finny
tribe are introduced, that of Saint Anthony, of Padua, preaching to the
fish, may be mentioned. This fine picture, by Salvator Rosa, is in the
collection at Althorp House, in Northamptonshire; the sermon itself is
given in Addison's Travels in Italy.
"On the conventual seal of Glastonbury Abbey are represented the figures
of Saint Dunstan between Saint Patrick and Saint Benignus; each has his
emblem beneath his feet; the last has a party of fish: perhaps, adds the
historian of the abbey, he also preached to them, as Saint Anthony did.
"A fish furnishing the University of Cambridge with a religious feast was
the occasion of a tract, entitled 'Vox Piscis; or, the Book-fish;'
containing three treatises which were found inside a cod fish in Cambridge
market, on Midsummer Eve, 1676. This fish is said to have been taken in
Lynn deeps, and after finding a book within it, the fish was carried by
the bedel to the vice-chancellor; and coming as it did at the
commencement, the very time when good learning and good cheer were most
expected, it was quaintly remarked, that this sea guest had brought his
book and his carcass to furnish both.
"In the arms of the city of Glasgow, and in those of the ancient see, a
salmon with a ring in its mouth is said to record a miracle of St.
Kentigern, the founder of the see and the first bishop of Glasgow. On the
reverse of Bishop Wishart's seal in the reign of Edward II., this supposed
allusion to the legendary story of St. Kentigern appears for the first
time."
Some of the early bishops of Glasgow displayed the figure of a salmon,
either on the sides of or below the shield of arms on their seals, a
circumstance which may be accounted for, without reference to a miracle,
as depicting the produce of the Clyde. The revenue of the church of
Glasgow at the Reformation included one hundred and sixty-eight salmon
arising from the franchise or fishing in that river.
James Cameron, Lord Privy Seal to King James I. of Scotland and bishop of
Glasgow in 1462, bore on his episcopal seal the figure of St. Kentigern in
a tabernacle, below which are his paternal arms, three bars, having a
salmon with a ring in its mouth on either side of the shield, which is
surmounted by the mitre. The ring is, perhaps, a type of the annular
money, then current among the Britons.
"It is curious to note how the emblem of the same fish has continued to
enter into the composition of the Glasgow arms and those of the
ecclesiastical establishment.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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