Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

—3;274 FISH IN MYTHS, SYMBOLS. DIET, MEDICINEhas been for centuries the emblem of the Samurai, because ofits accredited power to withstand opposition and to swimagainst the current of the stream.On the advent of Christianity, numerous become theallusions in Patristic and other literature. From the repetitionby Father after Father of AqucB vivce piscis Christus, of piscatioduplex, Ecclesia prcesens et futura, and of similar sentences, theapplication approaches perilously near the commonplace.Nor was its scope morally limited. St. Augustine, St.Cyprian, and others allegorise fish and fishing in both good andbad senses.Thus, piscis pia fides quca vivit inter fluctus nee frangitur ;piscis fides invisibilium ; rete Christus ; sagcena EcclesiaChristus est piscis assus discipulis, serpens Judceis, can bematched by pisces immundi, peccatores ; piscis fuaris, dcemones ;piscator Diaholus ; rete, deceptio Diaholi ; and sagcena, cormulieris, which last, from a technical point of view, hardlystamps Bishop Humbertus as a proficient in our craft.From the identification Christus est piscis i—is no longstep to the symbolic use of the very letters which spell theGreek word for fish : thus from IxeYS=I-ch-th-u-s, is established'\r\(jovg XptaroQ Oeov v'log aioT)\p, or " Jesus Christ, of GodSon, Saviour."This symbolic adoption in connection with their God wasfar from original. A fish, at first the symbol of Vishnu, wasadopted by the Buddhists, and from them by the Christiansof Turkestan. 2 This adoption and adaptation of a Pagansymbol was but one of the many instances where Christianpolicy or Christian practice took over and continued heathencustoms, institutions, and vestments.^ Pitra, op. cit., has several plates bearing on this. Of the coloured,pi. I shows an eucharistic table with a fish and bread upon it, and at eachside seven baskets full of the latter, while in pi. 3 a fish swims bearing on hishead a basket with sacred loaves, both illustrative of the miracle. See alsopp. 565-6.2 Keller, op. cit., p. 352. The latest and best monograph on the fishsymbolin Christianity is that of F. J. Dolger, Das Fisch-symbol infruhchristlicherZeit (Freiburg, 1910), whose conclusions are summarised in the Archiv fiirReligionswissenschaft (1912), XV. 297 f.^ Cf. the many fascinating works of Dr. J. Rendel Harris, e.g. The Cultof the Heavenly Twins and Boanerges. Also Lowrie, Art and Archaologyand Miss M. Hamilton, Greek Saints and their Festivals.