SECTION III.
In the Church of Rome, the clothing and crowning of images form no
insignificant part of the ceremonial. The sacred images are not
represented, like ordinary statues, with the garments formed of the same
material as themselves, but they have garments put on them from time to
time, like ordinary mortals of living flesh and blood. Great expense is
often lavished on their drapery; and those who present to them splendid
robes are believed thereby to gain their signal favour, and to lay up a
large stock of merit for themselves. Thus, in September, 1852, we find
the Duke and Duchess of Montpensier celebrated in the Tablet, not only
for their charity in "giving 3000 reals in alms to the
poor," but especially, and above all, for their piety in "presenting
the Virgin with a magnificent dress of tissue of gold, with white lace
and a silver crown." Somewhat about the same time the piety of
the dissolute Queen of Spain was testified by a similar benefaction,
when she deposited at the feet of the Queen of Heaven the homage of the
dress and jewels she wore on a previous occasion of solemn thanksgiving,
as well as the dress in which she was attired when she was stabbed by
the assassin Merino. "The mantle," says the Spanish
journal Espana, "exhibited the marks of the wound, and its
ermine lining was stained with the precious blood of Her Majesty. In the
basket (that bore the dresses) were likewise the jewels which adorned
Her Majesty's head and breast. Among them was a diamond stomacher, so
exquisitely wrought, and so dazzling, that it appeared to be wrought of
a single stone." * This is all sufficiently childish, and
presents human nature in a most humiliating aspect; but it is just
copied from the old Pagan worship. The same clothing and adorning of the
gods went on in Egypt, and there were sacred persons who alone could be
permitted to interfere with so high a function. Thus, in the Rosetta
Stone we find these sacred functionaries distinctly referred to : "The
chief priests and prophets, and those who have access to the adytum to
clothe the gods,.... assembled in the temple at Memphis, established the
following decree." * The "clothing of the gods"
occupied an equally important place in the sacred ceremonial of ancient
Greece. Thus, we find Pausanias referring to a present made to Minerva:
"In after times Laodice, the daughter of Agapenor, sent a veil to
Tegea, to Minerva Alea." The epigram [inscription] on this
offering indicates, at the same time, the origin of Laodice:-
"Laodice, from Cyprus, the divine,
To her paternal wide-extended land,
This veil--an offering to Minerva--sent." *
Thus, also, when Hecuba, the Trojan queen, in the instance already
referred to, was directed to lead the penitential procession through the
streets of Troy to Minerva's temple, she was commanded not to go
empty-handed, but to carry along with her, as her most acceptable
offering -
"The largest mantle your full wardrobes hold,
Most prized for art, and laboured o'er with gold."
The royal lady punctually obeyed:-
"The Phrygian queen to her rich wardrobe went,
Where treasured odours breathed a costly scent;
There lay the vestures of no vulgar art;
Sidonian maids embroidered every part,
Whom from soft Sydon youthful Paris bore,
With Helen touching on the Tyrian shore.
Here, as the Queen revolved with careful eyes
The various textures and the various dyes,
She chose a veil that shone superior far,
And glowed refulgent as the morning star." *
There is surely a wonderful resemblance here between the piety of the
Queen of Troy and that of the Queen of Spain. Now, in ancient Paganism
there was a mystery couched under the clothing of the gods. If gods and
goddesses were so much pleased by being clothing, it was because there
had once been a time in their history when they stood greatly in need of
clothing. Yes, it can be distinctly established, as had been already
hinted, that ultimately the great god and great goddess of Heathenism,
while the facts of their own history were interwoven with their
idolatrous system, were worshipped also as incarnations of our great
progenitors, whose disastrous fall stripped them of their primeval
glory, and made it needful that the hand Divine should cover their
nakedness with clothing especially prepared for them. I cannot enter
here into an elaborate proof of this point; but let the statement of
Herodotus be pondered in regard to the annual ceremony, observed in
Egypt, of slaying a ram, and clothing the FATHER OF THE GODS with its
skin. * Compare this statement with the Divine record in Genesis about
the clothing of the "Father of Mankind" in a coat of
sheepskin; and after all that we have seen of the deification of dead
men, can there be a doubt what it was that was thus annually
commemorated? Nimrod himself, when he was cut in pieces, was necessarily
stripped. That exposure was identified with the nakedness of Noah, and
ultimately with that of Adam. His sufferings were represented as
voluntarily undergone for the good of mankind. His nakedness, therefore,
and the nakedness of the "Father of the gods," of
whom he was an incarnation, was held to be a voluntary humiliation too.
When, therefore, his suffering was over, and his humiliation past, the
clothing in which he was invested was regarded as a meritorious
clothing, available not only for himself, but for all who were initiated
in his mysteries. In the sacred rites of the Babylonian god, both the
exposure and the clothing that were represented as having taken place,
in his own history, were repeated on all his worshippers, in accordance
with the statement of Firmicus, that the initiated underwent what their
god had undergone. * First, after being duly prepared by magic rites and
ceremonies, they were ushered, in a state of absolute nudity, into the
innermost recesses of the temple. This appears from the following
statement of Proclus: "In the most holy of the mysteries, they
say that the mystics at first meet with the many-shaped genera[i.e.,
with evil demons], which are hurled forth before the gods: but on
entering the interior parts of the temple, unmoved and guarded by the
mystic rites, they genuinely receive in their bosom divine illumination,
and, DIVESTED OF THEIR GARMENTS, participate, as they would say, of a
divine nature." * When the initiated, thus "illuminated"
and made partakers of a "divine nature," after being "divested
of their garments," were clothed anew, the garments with which
they were invested were looked upon as "sacred garments,"
and possessing distinguished virtues. "The coat of skin" with
which the Father of mankind was divinely invested after he was made so
painfully sensible of his nakedness, was, as all intelligent theologians
admit, a typical emblem of the glorious righteousness of Christ--"the
garment of salvation," which is "unto all and upon
all them that believe." the garments of those initiated in the
Eleusinian Mysteries," says Potter, "were accounted
sacred, and of no less efficacy to avert evils than charms and
incantations. They were never cast off till completely worn out." *
And of course, if possible, in these "sacred garments" they
were buried; for Herodotus, speaking of Egypt, whence these mysteries
were derived, tells us that "religion" prescribed the
garments of the dead. * The efficacy of "sacred garments"
as a means of salvation and delivering from evil in the unseen and
eternal world, occupies a foremost place in many religions. Thus the
Parsees, the fundamental elements of whose system came from the Chaldean
Zoroaster, believe that "the sadra or sacred vest" tends
essentially to "preserve the departed soul from the calamities
accruing from Ahriman," or the Devil; and they represent those
who neglect the use of this "sacred vest" as
suffering in their souls, and "uttering the most dreadful and
appalling cries," on account of the torments inflicted on them
"by all kinds of reptiles and noxious animals, who assail them
with their teeth and stings, and give them not a moment's respite."
* What could have ever led mankind to attribute such virtue to a "sacred
vest"? If it be admitted that it is just a perversion of the "sacred
garment" put on our first parents, all is clear. This, too,
accounts for the superstitious feeling in the Papacy, otherwise so
unaccountable, that led so many in the dark ages to fortify themselves
against the fears of the judgment to come, by seeking to be buried in a
monk's dress. "To be buried in a friar's cast-off habit,
accompanied by letters enrolling the deceased in a monastic order, was
accounted a sure deliverance from eternal condemnation! In 'Piers the
Ploughman's Creed," a friar is described as wheedling a poor
man out of his money by assuring him that, if he will only contribute to
his monastery,
'St. Francis himself shall fold thee in his cope,
And present thee to the Trinity, and pray for thy sins.'*
In virtue of the same superstitious belief, King John of England was
buried in a monk's cowl; * and many a royal and noble personage besides,
"before life and immorality" were anew "brought
to light" at the Reformation, could think of no better way to
cover their naked and polluted souls in prospect of death, than by
wrapping themselves in the garment of some monk or friar as unholy as
themselves. Now, all these refuges of lies, in Popery as well as
Paganism, taken in connection with the clothing of the saints of the one
system, and of the gods of the other, when traced to their source, show
that since sin entered the world, man has ever felt the need of a better
righteousness than his own to cover him, and that the time was when all
the tribes of the earth knew that the only righteousness that could
avail for such a purpose was "the righteousness of God,"
and that of "God manifest in the flesh."
Intimately connected with the "clothing of the images of the
saints" is also the "crowning" of them. For
the last two centuries, in the Popish communion, the festivals for
crowning the "sacred images" have been more and more
celebrated. In Florence, a few years ago, the image of the Madonna with
the child in her arms was "crowned" with unusual pomp
and solemnity. * Now, this too arose out of the facts commemorated in
the history of Bacchus or Osiris. As Nimrod was the first king after the
Flood, so Bacchus was celebrated as the first who wore a crown. * When,
however, he fell into the hands of his enemies, as he was stripped of
all his glory and power, he was stripped also of his crown. The "falling
of the crown from the head of Osiris" was specially
commemorated in Egypt. That crown at different times was represented in
different ways, but in the most famous myth of Osiris it was represented
as a "Melilot garland." * Melilot is a species of
trefoil; and trefoil in the Pagan system was one of the emblems of the
Trinity. Among the Tractarians at this day, trefoil is used in the same
symbolical sense as it has long been in the Papacy, from which Puseyism
has borrowed it. Thus, in a blasphemous Popish representation of what is
called God the Father (of the fourteenth century), we find him
represented as wearing a crown with three points, each of which is
surmounted with a leaf of white clover . * But long before Tractarianism
or Romanism was known, trefoil was a sacred symbol. The clover leaf was
evidently a symbol of high import among the ancient Persians; for thus
we find Herodotus referring to it, in describing the rites of the
Persian Magi--"If any (Persian) intends to offer to a god, he
leads the animal to a consecrated spot. Then, dividing the victim into
parts, he boils the flesh, and lays it upon the most tender herbs,
especially TREFOIL. This done, a magus-- without a magus no sacrifice
can be performed--sings a sacred hymn." * In Greece, the
clover, or trefoil, in some form or other, had also occupied an
important place; for the rod of Mercury, the conductor of souls, to
which such potency was ascribed, was called "Rabdos
Tripetelos," or "the three-leaved rod." *
Among the British Druids the white clover leaf was held in high esteem
as an emblem of their Triune God, * and was borrowed from the same
Babylonian source as the rest of their religion. The Melilot, or trefoil
garland, then, with which the head of Osiris was bound, was the crown of
the Trinity--the crown set on his head as the representative of the
Eternal--"The crown of all the earth," in accordance
with the voice divine at his birth, "The Lord of all the earth
is born." Now, as that "Melilot garland," that
crown of universal dominion, fell "from his head"
before his death, so, when he rose to new life, the crown must be again
set upon his head, and his universal dominion solemnly avouched. Hence,
therefore, came the solemn crowning of the statues of the great god, and
also the laying of the "chaplet" on his altar, as a
trophy of his recovered "dominion." But if the great
god was crowned, it was needful also that the great goddess should
receive a similar honour. Therefore it was fabled that when Bacchus
carried his wife Ariadne to heaven, in token of the high dignity
bestowed upon her, he set a crown upon her head; * and the remembrance
of this crowning of the wife of the Babylonian god is perpetuated to
this hour by the well-known figure in the sphere called Ariadnaea
corona, * or "Ariadne's crown." This is, beyond
question, the real source of the Popish rite of crowning the image of
the Virgin.
From the fact that the Melilot garland occupied so conspicuous a
place in the myth of Osiris, and that the "chaplet"
was laid on his altar, and his tomb was "crowned" *
with flowers, arose the custom, so prevalent in heathenism, of adorning
the altars of the gods with "chaplets" of all sorts,
and with a gay profusion of flowers. * Side by side with this reason for
decorating the altars with flowers, there was also another. When in
"That fair field
Of Enna, Proserpine gathering flowers,
Herself, a fairer flower, by gloomy Dis,
Was gathered;"
and all the flowers she had stored up in her lap were lost, the loss
thereby sustained by the world not only drew forth her own tears, but
was lamented in the Mysteries as a loss of no ordinary kind, a loss
which not only stripped her of her own spiritual glory, but blasted the
fertility and beauty of the earth itself. * That loss, however, the wife
of Nimrod, under the name of Astarte, or Venus, was believed to have
more than repaired. Therefore, while the sacred "chaplet"
of the discrowned god was placed in triumph anew on his head and on his
altars, the recovered flowers which Proserpine had lost were also laid
on these altars along with it, in token of gratitude to that mother of
grace and goodness, for the beauty and temporal blessings that the earth
owed to her interposition and love. * In Pagan Rome especially this was
the case. The altars were profusely adorned with flowers. From that
source directly the Papacy has borrowed the custom of adorning the altar
with flowers; and from the Papacy, Puseyism, in Protestant England, is
labouring to introduce the custom among ourselves. But, viewing it in
connection with its source, surely men with the slightest spark of
Christian feeling may well blush to think of such a thing. It is not
only opposed to the genius of the Gospel dispensation, which requires
that they who worship God, who is a Spirit, "worship Him in
spirit and in truth;" * but it is a direct symbolising with
those who rejoiced in the re-establishment of Paganism in opposition to
the worship of the one living and true God.
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