Notes and Queries, No. 209, October 29 1853: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc. — John Shaqi
Notes and Queries, No. 209, October 29 1853: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc.Various
History
Notes and Queries, No. 209, October 29 1853: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc.
Various
Questions and answers -- Periodicals
In youth, the language assigned to flowers appeared to me captivating
and elegant, as imparting the finer feelings and sympathies of our
nature. In maturer age, and after the study of the history of the
customs of mankind, symbols and emblems seemed to me an universal
language, which delicately delineated the violent passions of our kind,
and transmitted from generation to generation national predilections and
pious emotions towards the God of Creation. That mythology should so
generally be interpreted Theism, and that forms or ceremonials of
worship should be held to limit and define belief in creed, may, in my
apprehension, be partly traceable to the school-book Lampriere's
_Classical Dictionary_. You or your correspondents may attribute it to
other and truer causes.
The rose, the thistle, the shamrock, the leek, the lion, the unicorn,
the harp, &c. are familiar examples of national emblems. The ivy, the
holly, and the mistletoe are joined up with the Christmas worship,
though probably of Druidical origin. The Assyrian sculptures present,
under the "Joronher," or effulgence, a sacred tree, which may assimilate
with the toolsu and the peepul tree, held in almost equal veneration by
the Hindoos. The winged lions and bulls with the heads of men, the
angels and cherubim, recall to mind passages of scriptural and pagan
history. The sciences of astronomy and mathematics have afforded myths
or symbols in the circle, the crescent, the bident, the trident, the
cross, &c.
The translators of the cuneiform inscriptions represent crucifixion as
the common punishment for rebellion and treason. The Jews may have
imitated the Assyrians, as crucifixion may have been adopted long before
that of Christ and the two thieves (Qy. robbers). The Mahomedans, who
have copied the Jews in many practices and customs, executed gang
robbers or daccorts by suspending the criminals from a tree, their heads
and arms being tied to the branches, and then ripping up the abdomen. I
myself saw in Oude an instance of several bodies. It may be inferred,
then, that the position of the culprits under execution was designated
by crucifixion. The Hindoos mildly say that when their system of
government existed in efficiency there was neither crime nor punishment.
To the examples mentioned by your correspondent, I admit that the form
of the cross, as now received, may be derived from that of Christ,
discovered on Mount Calvary in 236 A.D. Constantine, in 306 A.D.,
adopted it as a standard in Labarum. Other nations have attached staves
to eagles, dragons, fish, &c. as standards and therefore, construing
"Crux ansata" literally, the ensign of Constantine might be formed by
attaching a staff to the Divine Glory represented in the Egyptian
paintings and Assyrian sculptures.
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