t years, an interesting work on
this topic of much use to archaeologists as a book of data,(2a) points
out, the great sources of animal symbolism were the famous _Physiologus_
and other natural history books of the Middle Ages (generally called
"Bestiaries"), and the Bible, mystically understood. The modern tendency
is somewhat unsympathetic towards any attempt to interpret the Bible
symbolically, and certainly some of the interpretations that have been
forced upon it in the name of symbolism are crude and fantastic enough.
But in the belief of the mystics, culminating in the elaborate system of
correspondences of SWEDENBORG, that every natural object, every event
in the history of the human race, and every word of the Bible, has a
symbolic and spiritual significance, there is, I think, a fundamental
truth. We must, however, as I have suggested already, distinguish
between true and forced symbolism. The early Christians employed the
fish as a symbol of Christ, because the Greek word for fish, icqus,
is obtained by _notariqon_(1) from the phrase <gr 'Ihsous Cristos Qeou
Uios, Swthr>--"JESUS CHRIST, the Son of God, the Saviour." Of course,
the obvious use of such a symbol was its entire unintelligibility to
those who had not yet been instructed in the mysteries of the Christian
faith, since in the days of persecution some degree of secrecy was
necessary. But the symbol has significance only in the Greek language,
and that of an entirely arbitrary nature. There is nothing in the nature
of the fish, apart from its name in Greek, which renders it suitable
to be used as a symbol of CHRIST. Contrast this pseudo-symbol, however,
with that of the Good Shepherd, the Lamb of God (fig. 34), or the Lion
of Judah. Here we have what may be regarded as true symbols, something
of whose meanings are clear to the smallest degree of spiritual sight,
even though the second of them has frequently been badly misinterpreted.

(2a) ARTHUR H. COLLINS, M.A.: _Symbolism of Animals and Birds
represented in English Church Architecture_ (1913).

(1) A Kabalistic process by which a word is formed by taking the initial
letters of a sentence or phrase.

It was a belief in the spiritual or moral significance of nature similar
to that of the mystical expositors of the Bible, that inspired the
mediaeval naturalists. The Bestiaries almost invariably conclude the
account of each animal with the moral that might be drawn from its
behaviour. The interpre