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

228 THE EVIL EYE CHAP.
Isis and Horus were distinctly associated with a fish,
for we find her represented as bearing a fish on her head
Fig. 90.
instead of the usual disc and horns
(Fig. 90).^^^ Another author says
" The most obvious and ancient sym-
bol of the reproductive power of water
was a fish.^'''^ Derceto, goddess of the
Phoenicians, had the body of a woman
ending in a fish. We have already
remarked that Diana was sovereign of
humidity, and was symbolised in the
aspect of the goddess of the fertilising
power of water by a crab. We ven-
ture to suggest that these considera-
tions offer another solution of the
origin of the fish as a Christian
symbol of Christ. The acrostic or
rebus explanation of the Greek word
for fish has always seemed speculative
and far-fetched, when viewed by
the light obtained from other well-
understood objects, such as the cross,
which have certainly been adopted from so-called heathen-
ism. All these startling facts, so far from unsettling our
weak minds upon the cardinal facts of our Christian belief,
should but prove to us that they are founded upon an in-
stinct planted in the breast of man as mysterious as his life,
and just as inexplicable by his limited faculties. They do
but point out the futility of what we in our pride call
" knowledge," and suggest to us that the best motto modern
savants could adopt would still be Quod sets nescis.^'^^
Further, we suggest that the celestial mother and child
were not only objects of faith and worship, but representa-
the purpose of this book nor with the spirit in which it is written. Moreover,
judging from some of those we have endeavoured to verify, the references
cannot be wholly relied on.
^''^ Inman, Ancient Faiths, vol. i. Frontispiece ; also p. 520.
^''3 Payne Knight, Symbolical Language,-^, iii.
^'* Upon this subject see Mr. Gladstone's remarks in a paper on " Heresy "
in the Nineteenth Century, August 1S94, p. 174.
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