which is meant to set forth a some one, or a something else besides itself.
The use of both arose among men when they first began to dwell on earth and live together. Through symbolism, and the phonetic system, Egypt struck out for herself her three alphabets—the hieroglyphic or picture writing; the hieratic or priestly characters, or shortened form of the hieroglyphics; and the enchorial or people's alphabet, a further abridgment still. The Hebrew letters are the conventional symbols of things in nature or art; and even yet, each keeps the name of the object which at first it represented; as "aleph" or "ox," "beth" or "house," "gimel" or "camel," &c.
Holy Writ is full of symbolism; and from the moment that we begin to read those words—"I will set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be the sign of a covenant,"[1] till we reach the last chapter in the New Testament, we shall, all throughout, come upon many most beautiful and appropriate examples. The blood sprinkled upon the door posts of the Israelites; the brazen serpent in the wilderness; that sign—that mystic and saving sign (Tau) of Ezekiel, were, each and every one of them symbols.
Being given to understand that things which happened to the Jews were so many symbols for us, the early Christian Church figured on the walls of the catacombs many passages from ancient Jewish history as applicable to itself, while its writers bestowed much attention on the study of symbolism. S. Melito, bishop of Sardes, A.D. 170, drew out of scripture a great many texts which would bear a symbolical meaning, and gave to his work the name of "The Key." Almost quite forgotten, and well nigh lost, this valuable book, after long and unwearied labour, was at last found and printed by Dom (now Cardinal) Pitra in his Spicilegium Solesmense, t. ii. Among other works from the pen of St. Epiphanius, born A.D. 310, we have his annotations on a book, then old, and called "The Physiologist," and a work of his own—a treatise on the twelve stones worn by Aaron,[2] in both of which, the Saint speaks much about symbolism. But the fourth century witnessed the production of the two great works on Scriptural Symbolism; that of St. Basil in his homilies on the six days' creation;[3] which sermons in Greek were styled by their writer "Hexæmeron;" and the other by St. Ambrose, in Latin, longer and more elaborated, on the same subject and bearing the same title. A love for such a study grew up with the church's growth everywhere, from the far east to the utmost west, amid
