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xviii
Introduction
—"The Ancient of Days" of Dan. vii. 9, 13, and 22 ;— " the
Sun of Righteousness . . . with heahng in his wings" of
Malachi iv. 2 ;— " the worshipp'd Sun," is thus revealed to us,
in the oldest of its Old World names, as the first, as well as
greatest, of talismans :* and its symbols, the Wheel, the svastika,
and the "Equinoctial," or "Greek Cross," were probably the
earliest figured by the human race, not excepting those an-
cestral, progenitory, and phallic symbols, with which the sun
symbols are so often found combined.
* Similarly phulake, the Greek for "caution," "watching," "being on one's
guard," was the original phylactery, "serving as a safeguard," and prophylactic,
" advanced guard," " outpost," &c. The original symbol [from the Greek sumballein,
"to throw together," "bring together," "compare," "contract,"' "covenant," etc.]
and
was a " pledge " to pay one's proportion of the cost of a Greek drinking match ;
hence a " passport " to such a carouse ; and any " passport " ; and the actual con-
tribution toward the bill ; and the debauch itself ; and, finally, any common meal.
It is partly in the last sense that the term symbol is sometimes applied to the elements
of the sacrament of the Eucharist. The pledge might be one's clothes,—literally a
"pawn"; but usuallyitwas the signet- ring, or the impression, that is, the signature,
of it, on clay or wa.x ; and hence a symbol came to mean any credential of authen-
ticity and claim. This may also partly explain the application of the term to a
"creed,"—as a "passport" to heaven,—as in the instance of the " -Symbolum
Apostolicum " ; although Rufinus applies the term thereto in translation of " collatio,"—
" id quod plures in unum conferunt" ; and the use of the latter term in the
connection is the source of the notion that each of the Apostles contributed an
article to the Creed called after them. A symbol as an impressed signature is a
significant image ; and as soon as this was recognised it was at once used all over
Anterior Asia, and Egypt, and throughout southern Europe as an outward and
visible sign of mental ideas, and particularly of religious ideas. The practice
indeed became universal of conveying sacerdotal dogmas and doctrines by means
of iconosemic symbols, including all kinds of ideographic representation ; and their
immemorial appropriation to religious subjects has always given these glyptic,
plastic, fictile, and painted symbols a character of sanctity unknown to any other
kind of hierography. With its enlarged divine significance the symbol became
identified with the oracle, the omen, and the talisman, defensive and offensive.
The amulet [Arabic, hamdil, " borne," tawis, " a refuge," hijab, " a cover," cf. the
Hindustani hamal, "a porter," "a bearer," in the sense o{ Henry and his Bearer,
and the Greek periainina and periapton'\ was originally a talisman, or talismanic
symbol, worn about the body, usually round the neck ; but the term has always
included any talisman, at least from the time of the Romans, who named the