RELIGIOUS SYMBOLISM Wolfgang Menzel (1854) wrote ((The picture is holy, same as the Word. The Savior spoke pic torially. The picture is as powerful as the word and more penetrating than words. The .
world was more pious while Christian symbol ism was in vogue; laymen and priests were bet ter trusted as long as everyone understood the pictures with which Art decorated the Church. . . . The world was more pious while it knew which symbol belonged to each season, yes, to each day of the year and that connected with the name of his Patron; while they yet recog nized the symbolism of natural phenomena every season, and even that of the animals, plants and stones, as the signature of the Holy One in all Creation.) We can call religious symbolism (when inspired) revealed or inter pretative religion, or, as Hugo of Saint Victor (who developed Christian symbolism so greatly) says: alt symbol is the comparison of the visible forms for the showing forth of the invisible.* Faced by the powers of the ele ments, fire, water, earth, lightning, etc., it soon became the natural instinct that primitive man should revere, fear and worship these ac tire conscious entities and that nature should take on in the primaeval brain a nomenclature• easiest defined in symbol form. Hence the earliest religion and the earliest symbolism may be reasonably con sidered as one and the same thought-develop ment of man. All through the evolution of the religious cults from time immemorial we will find the worship of the sun and light up to the present day in some form, open or occult. To the primitive man the warmth and productive power in nature of the sun's rays has been looked upon as a beneficent agent; and light, which dissipates the hidden dangers of night or darkness, has naturally ever been held in human regard as a friend and defender of humanity against evil. The primary consider ation of light brings flame to recognition, and we learn that the ancient Persians (as- well as modern Parsees) reverenced flame as son of Ormuzd; in Rome flame was kept pure by the pure daughters (vestals) of the leading fami lies; in Israel the Jews kept watch over it to dispel darkness and the inherent evil spirits, Fire was the Assyrian as well as the Germanic test of purity of those accused of evil; fire ap pealed as purifying agent on the sacrificial altar since and probably prehistoric times.
For the candles on our altars are but a con tinuation of those displayed in the seven branched candlestick in King Solomon's temple. The altar, the Latin altare (from alte, high) was any kind of an elevation on which to sacrifice, and the hill or mountain summit was preferred on which to erect it. Nearest to heaven, the mountain height has always been a reverenced symbol the world over, whether it be Mount Olympus of the Greeks or Fuji Yama of the Japanese, while the Christian devotee selects Mount Athos and other heights on which to live in prayer, and the sacred char acter of Mount Lebanon comes up promi nently to mind.
The source of origin of relbgious symbolism can be definitely placed in the Orient, the birth place of all occultism, for the primal elements of occultism are due to the study of the cosmic laws, the world's circumambient physical and spiritual powers and the part man could take in their control. The natural development and progress in such study brought the visible uni verse into its realm, and the planets found their place in the curriculum. Astrology gave the laws of astral motion, their cause and their power over the human race. Closer investigation evolved the science of mathe matics and geometry— always as corollary and indivisible part of cosmic philosophy with symbolism as a large portion of its language. The science of medicine was an outgrowth from the master mind of Aristotle and such fol lowers as Galen, Ibn Sina, Paracelsus, etc. Diagnosis included the functional powers of the sun, moon and planets, and idol worship of the untrained mind of the pagan was an act of gross materialism and misunderstanding of the occult purpose of symbolism as divine in terpretation.