The evil eye. An account of this ancient and wide spread superstition

1 86 THE EVIL EYE chap.
Without entering into the nice controversy here
foreshadowed, it is quite enough for the present
purpose to point to the fact that the authors of the
Vulgate translation believed, from their own training
and habit, that the Hebrew meaning was that the
great, almost divine Moses, came down with actual
horns upon his head. Moreover, this view has
been actually maintained by more than one com-
mentator.^°^
As with gods, so with regard to goddesses, we find
the same pervading idea ; and as we proceed, this
will have constant illustration in the manifold combination
of attributes certainly relating to one and
the same being, but in their inception belonging to
many distinct personifications.
" Apuleius quoque Isin—Deum Matrem, Miner-
vam, Junonem, Dianam, Cererem, Venerem, Pro-
serpinam, Hecatem unam, eandemque esse prse-
dicat."^°* If then all these various goddesses, like
20^ Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, s.v. " Horn."
Michael Angelo's famous statue in .San Pietro in Vincoli, of which a
copy exists at South Kensington, whereon the horns are very concrete in
substance, serves to show the continuance of the old classic notions referred
to above. That horns are typified by the shape of a bishop's mitre is well
known, and the belief that Moses had actual solid horns must have been
firmly held in the Middle Ages. Bishop Reginald of Bath, 1174-1191, is
represented on his seal as having actual horns projecting from his head while
in the act of benediction, besides the conventional ones of his mitre. Moreover,
it is evident that horns were typified by the points of the mitre and were
believed to have the power of keeping off evil and of appearing terrible to
evil persons. The words now used in the consecration of a bishop in the
Roman Church fully keep alive this belief. In placing the mitre on the head
of the newly-consecrated prelate, the consecrator says: "We set on the
head of this prelate, Thy champion, the helmet of defence and of salvation,
that with comely face, and with his head armed with the horns of either
Testament, he may appear terrible to the gainsayers of the truth," etc.
"Order of Consecration of a Bishop-elect." Translated from The Jioma7t
Pontifical (Burns and Gates, 1893), p. 14.
"^^^ Symbolica Diana Ephesi(C, t^. lo. The author continues, "nevertheless
celebrated by diverse names, and worshipped by various races in many
different ways" (jniiUiplici specie), " Isis, Hathor, Aphrodite, and Venus
are all one and the same personage" (Payne Knight, Symb. Lang, of Anc.
Art, p. 35).
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