Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SYMBOLS 275Such seems to have been the trend, possibly from pursuinga poHcy of compromise, more probably from following theline of least resistance, of most religious changes or revivals.But while the attributes of many of the Greek gods were, atleast in certain of their attributes, assimilated to Syrian andEastern divinities, and while the Roman pantheon made roomfor various Egyptian new-comers, the Jew's conception of hisDeity remained practically unaffected and uninfected.A fish frequently figures on the tombs of the early Christiansin the catacombs at Rome : sometimes it bears on its back abowl with wine and wafers of bread. Many tombs containsmall fish of wood or ivory. Such fish served, we are told, asemblems and acrostics, pointing out to his co-religionists theto theburial place of a Christian without betraying the factpersecutors.This explanation lacks confirmation, and carries littleconviction, for two (among other) reasons. First :criticalstatistics show that fish as symbols in Christian art figuredfrequently both before and after Constantine. Second :fishas indicative of a burial place would by their very presencequickly defeat the object aimed at. They would indicate, assurely as pointers game, the secret grave, for the persecutorsof the Christians, as history shows, were not all exactlyfools.Some authors trace back not a few of the signs and 1 usagesadopted and perpetuated by the Christians to the worship ofVenus, of which, when in conjunction with a fish,the underlyingidea was the adoration—nearly universal—of fecundity.Two instances, which I give for what they are worth, mustsuffice.As regards Lent, A. de Gubernatis contends that Aphroditeor Venus, the goddess of Love 2, frequently represented theSpring. Hence it is that in Lent, appointed by the Church tobe observed in Spring, and again on Friday (or the day of Freya)^ See C. Cahier, Caracttristiques des Saints dans V art popnlaire (Paris, 1867),Vol. II. 691 ft., for illustrations of Saints accompanied tiy fishes.* Op. cit., II. 340. " The gemini pisces, the two fishes joined in one, weresacred to her, and the joke of the poisson d'Avril ... is a jest of phallicalorigin, and has a scandalous significance."