SIMBOLO E SIMBOLISMO

SYMBOL AND SYMBOLISM

From Greek *σύν* = “with, together” and *βάλλω* = “I cast” with the sense of “to put together,” “to bring objects and ideas near to one another.” Leaving aside, because they are not relevant here, the attribution of the term *symbol* to those objects whose separate or broken parts, when reunited, served as a token of recognition, and to those objects that served as a ticket of admission to a place, the term *symbol* is used above all in two senses: 1) of a formula or doctrinal profession that unites adherents to the same faith, such as the *symbols* or *regulae fidei*, the distinctive mark of the faithful belonging to the Catholic Church (and for this see SYMBOLS OF FAITH); 2) of something sensible, an object or action, having a relation of meaning with respect to a spiritual object, by virtue of a certain resemblance highlighted through an intellectual comparison, and it is of this that we intend to speak here. Symbolism, therefore, means the tendency to represent ideas by means of symbols, and also the science that studies symbols and their value.

### I. SYMBOL AND SYMBOLISM IN NON-CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS

The symbol can be realistic when, as happens in primitive mentality, it sees behind material things (depicted, represented through action, etc.) a very close relation between the representative and the thing to which the representation refers; all the rites of imitative magic (see MAGIC) are in the end symbolic rites. This realistic value remains even when culture rises from the primitive to more complex conceptions, as in the ancient Greek and Hellenistic mysteries, in which the initiated rite not only symbolizes but also enacts (vision, sacred meal, touching) the sacred union between the initiate and the god of the mystery.

The realistic symbol can be suggested by intellectual coherence or by conventional motives; thus the swastika, originally a solar symbol, became during the German national-socialist delirium a symbol of the Aryans; the crescent moon has become, for reasons not known, a symbol of Islam; and above all the cross is the symbol of Christianity.

For a symbol to have an unifying efficacy it must be intelligible, that is, intuitively revealing of the religious truth symbolized, but not too intellectualistic otherwise it would lose its mystical efficacy, nor too minutely adherent to the thing symbolized, under penalty of not being grasped or easily recalled to memory. For smaller groupings, proper to groups of initiates, the symbol can be more complicated and mysterious because in this case it serves as a token of recognition for the initiates alone.

The reality of religious symbol, indispensable for bringing about mystical life in the individual and in the group, tends to assume a more spiritual value. Thus it happens that in the highest phases of mysticism the orant does without sacred images, consecrated places, and ceremonies, and concentrates on meditation made in silent recollection.

Since the symbol is a synthesis of the beliefs and religious experiences of the social body, it follows their fate and thus either dissolves or evaporates when religious schemes evolve, or crystallizes when the group, because of historical and ethnic contrast, closes itself to external influences and exchanges. Since law regulates and consecrates social relations with men, symbol, in its various aspects of sign, gesture, and formula, has in law a use all the wider the more primitive it is.

Thus the breaking of a scroll in Greece, of a rod or *stipula* in Rome, whose two parts remain in the hands of the contracting parties or witnesses, symbolized the stipulation of a contract; thus all juridical formulas accompanied by gestures relating to various parts of the human body: the head in the case of adoption and inauguration; the lobe of the ear (considered the seat of memory) in mancipations, inheritances, testimonies (*antestatio*); the hand as a symbol of power (in *manum convenire*, *in manu esse*, *manumittere*, *manus conserere*, *manus inicere*, *manum opponere*); the foot as a symbol of possession, especially of immovables. In medieval law the ceremonies of adoption and investiture were all characterized by a symbolic ceremony: the cutting of a lock of hair (*tonsura*) for those who entered the service of the Church; the belt of a sword for elected knights; the delivery of the chalice or pastoral staff for the investiture of an ecclesiastical fief; of a clod of earth for that of a civil one, etc.

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Symbol and Symbolism — Symbolic vision of St. John the Evangelist on the island of Patmos (Rev. 12 ff.). Detail of the frescoes by Giotto (after 1320) in the Peruzzi Chapel, restored in the 19th century — Florence, church of Santa Croce.

M. Wiener, *Von der Symbolen*, Berlin 1924; E. Cassirer, *Philosophie der symbolischen Formen*, 3 vols., ibid. 1923-31; W. Deonna, *Quelques réflexions sur le symbolisme*, in *Revue hist. religions*, 38 (1924), pp. 18 ff.; S. A. Mackenzie, *The Migration of Symbols and their Relation to Beliefs and Customs*, London 1926; G. Lanocci-Villene, *Le livre des symboles; Dictionnaire de symbole*, 1924, pp. 18 ff.; L. Lévy-Bruhl, *L’expérience mystique et les symboles chez les primitifs*, ibid. 1938; G. Cumont, *Le symbolisme funéraire des Romains*, ibid. 1941; M. Eliade, *Traité d’histoire des religions*, ch. 13, *La structure des symboles*, ibid. 1949, pp. 372-91. See above all, for a judgment on the various hypotheses concerning symbols and the relations between the symbols of pagan religions and those of Christianity: K. Prümmer, *Religionsgeschicht. Handbuch*, Freiburg im Br. 1943, index; *Symbol e Symbolismus*, pp. 916-17; *Tiere*, p. 918.

### II. SYMBOL AND SYMBOLISM IN HOLY SCRIPTURE

The term recurs in its etymological sense in the biblical version of the Septuagint and in the Vulgate (*dantes symbola*) of Prov. 23:20-21, to indicate the portion that the diners “put together” for the common meal.

In biblical hermeneutics or interpretation (see HERMENEUTICS), however, it is customary to consider as a symbol a thing (image, action, vision, etc.) signified by the biblical words, done expressly and only to signify another analogous or connected thing. The biblical symbol, thus described, is distinguished from the biblical *type* (see TYPE), which is also a signifying thing but is not done expressly and only to signify (e.g., Melchizedek as a type of Christ). The typical sense is normally not known by the human author of the Bible, the symbolic sense is.

One must distinguish the symbol from metaphor and other rhetorical figures of speech. Indeed, in the description of the symbol the biblical words are used in their proper literal sense, whereas in metaphor (or in allegory, which is a continued metaphor) and in other rhetorical figures, the terms are used in a transferred literal sense. Parables and fables can also be considered literary symbols; they are invented narratives intended to signify higher realities. In the prophetic books of the Bible and in the Apocalypse one finds many symbolic visions, symbolic actions, symbolic numbers, etc. Symbolic actions are also found in various historical books, e.g., those performed by Samuel (1 Sam. 11:5-7), by Jonathan (ibid. 20:20-22), by the prophet Ahijah of Shiloh (who, by tearing his mantle into twelve pieces, symbolizes the division of Solomon’s kingdom: 1 Kings 11:29-39), by a son of the prophets (ibid. 20:35-43), by the false prophet Zedekiah (ibid. 22:11), by Elisha (2 Kings 14-19), by Nehemiah (Neh. 5:12-13). In the New Testament one can consider as symbols those connected with water: John the Baptist’s baptism (a sign of penance), that of Jesus (an efficacious sign of grace), the washings

Natural symbolism serves to lead man, through sensible things, to the knowledge of intelligible realities (St. Thomas, loc. cit.), and also to show that creatures bear the mark and likeness of the Creator, and that man in particular was created in His image and likeness (Gen. 1:26). Hence human realities are naturally suited to signify divine realities. For this reason human language can express in Scripture the Divine Revelation. When the Word became flesh, there took place the sensible manifestation (epiphany, theophany) of the mystery of God. He Himself is the mystery of God (Col. 2:2), that is, the manifestation of God through the sensible veil of the assumed nature, which both conceals and reveals Him at the same time. The Church and the Sacraments, which are the prolongation of the humanity of Jesus, Christian worship, and liturgy are further manifestations of this symbolism; even the Christian community rests upon a mass of symbols derived from the essential dogmas of creation, the Revelation of the Word of God, the Incarnation, and the Redemption which actually took place.

Of course, symbolism has its dangers; it may lead a primitive religious mentality to identify the symbol with the reality (magic, idolatry), or, on the other hand, it may suggest to a rationalistic mind the idea of exchanging it for a mere allegory or an empty sign. These dangers, however, should not make us fail to recognize the importance of this way of expressing religious realities, which penetrates even into the mystery of the Incarnation itself. If the Word of God manifests Himself to man through the assumed humanity, His properties and activities (which might be called symbols), and if man in turn naturally makes use of symbols to express the knowledge he has learned from God, then a theology (δεξιόλογα, discourse of God, treatment of God) can well be built upon the foundation of such symbols. Alongside a theology of a logical and conceptual nature, the Church has known a symbolic theology (theological symbolism), whose history must be traced.

2. Historical Development

It is not difficult to discover traces of theological symbolism in the history of Christian thought; St. Ignatius of Antioch sees in the bishop and in the visible hierarchy the image (σύνοδος) of God and of the invisible hierarchy (Magn., 6, 1; Trall., 3, 1). But such symbolism developed especially at Alexandria, where Neoplatonic influence and the spiritual exegesis of Scripture created a favorable environment for II. Clement devoted many pages to what he calls the symbolic genre (συμβολικόν στάδιο) (Strom., 2, 1, 1-2 sqq.; CB, II, 113 sqq.). Here we find both poetic or biblical allegory and properly religious symbolism. To know God Who is transcendent, two paths are open to the human spirit: negation (negative theology, cf., e.g., Strom., 5, 12, 81-82; CB II, 380) and analogy, which gives rise to symbolism. Visible things have a spiritual meaning and signify invisible things; the world, in its totality, is nothing but a religious language, founded on an ontological likeness, more precisely on an exemplarism: the spiritual world is the archetype, the sensible world is the image of that model (Strom., 5, 14, 93; CB, II, 387). Clement was the first to outline a theory of religious symbolism: he especially discovered its psychological and pedagogical usefulness (Strom., 5, 46, 9-56-57; CB, II, 357, 364) and made wide use of it in the allegorical interpretation of Scripture. He used it very little, however, as an instrument of theology. Though he treated at length of the mysteries, which can be known only mystically (Strom., 1, 1, 13; CB, II, 10), this was more due to literary reminiscence of the Eleusinian or Dionysian mysteries than for the purpose of theological elaboration. In particular, his sacramental theology, in which theological symbolism has greater development, is relatively poor.

With Origen, who is the first to make a complete and highly developed theological synthesis, symbolism was used in a much more systematic way. Not only is his theory of the senses of Scripture imposed by the symbolism of human psychology (Scripture has three senses, just as man is composed of body, soul, and spirit), but his theology is built in every detail on the notion of symbol (μυστήριον): “In sacramentis sunt cuncta quae sunt” (In Gen. hom., 9, 1: PG 12, 211). The sensible world is made in the image of the intelligible world (In Levit. hom., 5, 1: ibid., 447), the events of the history of Israel are the image of the soul in its journey toward perfection (In Num. hom., 27: ibid. 780-801), the historical life of Christ is the symbol of the life of the Church, the mystical body (In Joh. Com. 10, 20: CB, IV. 209), the visible Church is the image of the invisible and heavenly Church, its rites are the image of what takes place spiritually in the invisible Church: symbolically, ecclesiastical reconciliation of the penitent is the sign of his return to the spiritual Church of the saints (K. Rahner, La doctrine d'Origène sur la pénitence, Paris 1950); even the sacramental eating of the Body of Christ is the image of the spiritual eating of the Logos. The Logos manifests Himself under a threefold sensible aspect: of the Incarnation, of Scripture, and of the Church, which are therefore, in different respects, three symbols and mysteries of the Word.

Such theology often lacks rigor and may disorient certain minds little sensitive to the notion of symbol; hence Protestants regarded Origen as the theorist of a pure sacramental symbolism (F. Loofs, Leitfaden zur Dogmengeschichte, Halle 1906, p. 212; A. Harnack, Dogmengeschichte, I, 4th ed., Tübingen 1910, pp. 476-78) and certain Catholics find it difficult to respond (thus F. Prat, Origène, Paris 1907, p. 313; J. Tixeront, Histoire des Dogmes, I, 10th ed., 1914, p. 324; G. Bareille, Origène, in DTC, V, cols. 1138-39; P. Batiffol, L'Eucharistie, 1938, pp. 270-71), but it reveals no less an immense richness and gives to the “mystery” all its breadth and depth, sacramental and ecclesiological at the same time, offers all the elements of the sign and opens the way to the so fruitful theology of the res et sacramentum.

To give a final example of theological symbolism among the Greek Fathers, we must mention, though in a very different environment, Pseudo-Dionysius. Undoubtedly, he insisted too much on the negative (apophatic) aspect of theology (mystical theology), but the parallelism he established, e.g., between ecclesiastical hierarchy and celestial hierarchy becomes incomprehensible if in the former we do not see an image and a symbol of the latter (Hier. Eccl., I, 5: PG 3, 376-77). Liturgies and sacramental rites are symbols, “the sensible signs of intelligible mysteries” (Hier. Eccl., II, 2, 3: PG 3, 397): all the theologian’s effort must be directed toward rising from the one to the other. It is well known how widely the works of Dionysius spread in the West and how, by the authority deriving from his pseudonym, Latin theology largely absorbed his symbolism. Nor should we forget how the religious thought of the East, particularly that of Russia, under the constant influence of the Greek Fathers and through the notable contribution of the liturgy, has remained thoroughly permeated with that symbolism.

The Latin Fathers made extensive use of symbolism even outside of exegesis, especially with regard to the Sacraments, or rather the Sacramentum (or mysterium), because the concept of Sacramentum has a broader meaning than that currently contained in the word "sacramento": it embraces both the mystery of Scripture and that of the Incarnation, as well as the mystery of the Church and that of the Sacraments (cf. St. Hilary’s *De Mysteriis*, the treatises *De Mysteriis* and *De Sacramentis*, and St. Ambrose’s *De Incarnationis Dominicae mysterio*). Already St. Cyprian employed the symbolism of the Eucharistic elements to construct a theology of the Eucharistic Sacrifice and its ecclesiological significance (Ep., 63, 13: CSEL, 3, 712), just as the symbolism of Baptism, which is one, provides him with a means to illustrate the mystery of the unity of the Church (the *unitatis Sacramentum*: Ep., 74, 11; CSEL, 3, 808).

St. Augustine, who was familiar with the works of St. Cyprian and, through St. Ambrose, had been able to undergo some influence of the original thought, became for the West the initiator of a "symbolic" theology of the Sacrament, which is integrated into the theology of the sign (cf. *De doctrina christiana*, I, 2, 2: PL 34, 19-20). The Sacrament is a sign: *sacrum signum* (*De Civitate Dei*, X, 5: CSEL, 40, 452; Ep., 138, 7; CSEL, 44, 131), whose value depends on an analogy and likeness to the thing signified (Ep., 98, 9: CSEL, 33, 531). The thing, the *res*, signified by the Sacrament is Christ, the symbol of symbolism.

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figure or the power of the body. While in the 11th century Berengar, denying what was later called transubstantiation, appealed to St Augustine and his definition of the sacrum signum, the rationalist tendencies of his thought and his rigid dialectic have nothing in common with the elasticity of the theological symbolism of the Fathers, and though he denied transubstantiation and remained very imprecise regarding real presence, he was not at all a symbolist in the manner of Origen and Augustine. Thus the theology of the patristic or monastic type, steeped in Scripture and symbols, gradually gave way to a “scientific” theology of a conceptual and deductive kind (M. D. Chenu, La théologie comme science au XIIIe siècle, Paris 1943). There was genuine progress, achieved not only under the influence of historical contingencies (the introduction of Aristotelianism) but also through the impulse of the exigencies of the human spirit, which tends to give its faith a scientific structure so as to grasp its full intelligibility.

The great scholastic doctors, however, did not thereby lose the riches of the Augustinian tradition. The sacramental theology of St Thomas Aquinas is entirely founded on the notion of sign (Sum. Theol., 3ª, q. 60, a. 1), and here the Summa, in contrast to the Commentary on the Sentences, which depends entirely on Hugh of St Victor, indicates a return to the Augustinian conception; it then completes the full elaboration of the notion of res et sacramentum, already sketched by Origen and Augustine, then by Peter Lombard, and based entirely on a twofold symbolism (ibid., q. 63, a. 3). Thus his theology of the Eucharist, which is certainly centered on transubstantiation and real presence (ibid., q. 75, 76, 77), remains faithful to the Augustinian tradition regarding the ecclesiological and eschatological symbolism of the body of Christ (Eucharistia est Sacramentum ecclesiasticae unitatis, ibid., q. 73, a. 2; res huius Sacramenti est unitas corporis mystici, ibid., q. 73, a. 3; cf. q. 73, aa. 4, 5, 6; q. 74, a. 1). Similar observations could be made regarding many questions in the Summa: those, for example, dealing with the work of the six days (Sum. Theol., 1ª, q. 68-74), or the Old Law (ibid., 1ª-2ª, q. 98-105), or the rites of the Mass (ibid., 3ª, q. 83; it is easy to see that St Thomas studies the eucharistic sacrifice precisely from this point of view). The theological synthesis of St Thomas, raised to the highest degree of rigor and scientific precision, gave religious symbolism its proper value. This balance was not to last: classical theology tended to ignore the full richness of symbolism, which reappeared in a certain arbitrary allegorical exegesis or in certain explanations of the rites of the Mass (already in Amalarius), so far removed from true liturgy and from the true spiritual sense of Scripture. A revival of theological symbolism can, however, be noted in certain positions which, moreover, are far removed from the symbolism of the Fathers.

Some leaders of the “Reformation,” such as Zwingli and Calvin, who denied real presence, saw in the Sacrament of the Supper nothing more than an image or figure of the crucified and risen Christ. “Our Lord Jesus Christ has left to the Church, his spouse, his image in the Sacrament of the Supper” (Zwingli, Corp. Ref., IV, 18, 858); “Jesus instituted and gave to his disciples the figure of his Body and of his Blood” (Calvin, Institution chrétienne, IV, 18, 19 and 20). Calvin could also appeal to certain expressions of the Fathers (some liberal Protestants interpreted Tertullian, Origen and St Augustine in this sense), but in reality this does not correspond to their thought, which never opposed sign (image) to reality.

Quite different is the “religious symbolism” or “symbolo-fideism” which emerged at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. Drawing on the thought of Schleiermacher, some Protestant theologians, e.g., A. Sabatier (1839-1901) and E. Ménégoz (1838-1921), considered our religious concepts necessarily inadequate to their object, as mere signs. Dogmas are symbolic expressions not of the objective and transcendent religious reality itself but of our religious experience. This, and nothing else, is what the Fathers can demand. Certain modernists, e.g., M. Hébert (1851-1916), took up this position again: dogmas are nothing but signs by which the human spirit expresses to itself the moral truths by which it must nourish its action. This tendency was clearly condemned by the encyclical Pascendi Dominici gregis (Denz-U, 2079).

The encyclical Humani generis (12 Aug. 1950) alluded to those who hold that “the doctrine of transubstantiation, since it is based on an antiquated philosophical notion of substance, must be so corrected that the real presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist is reduced to a certain symbolism, inasmuch as the consecrated species are efficacious signs only of a spiritual presence of Christ and of his intimate union with the faithful members in the mystical body” (AAS, 42 [1950], pp. 570-71). To reduce eucharistic symbolism in this way to being nothing more than the sign of a “purely spiritual” presence would be to abuse the formulas of St Augustine and to compromise the dogma of real presence.

3. Conclusion

It has been shown that theological symbolism is an important element of Christian thought; it is to be deplored that a very acute mind, a rationalist, did not appreciate it or even distorted it to the point of opposing it to the realism of faith. It must be admitted that modern thought has become estranged from such a way of expression. Already Harnack had noted this with regard to Origen: “Today we understand by the name of sign something which is not what it signifies; formerly, however, by sign was understood something which in some way really was what it signified” (Dogmengeschichte, I, 4th ed., Tübingen 1910, p. 476). In this observation is found the explanation of the profound meaning of the theological symbolism of the ancients, as well as the explanation of the process of deformation to which it has been subjected by moderns. If, while preserving the rational and realistic exigencies which are the magnificent result of scholastic theology, this sense of the sign and of “mystery” could be rediscovered, an incalculable benefit would accrue to religious thought, which could thus draw closer to certain modern spirits, more sensitive than formerly to symbolic and artistic expression; therefore renewed contact with Scripture, the Fathers and liturgy (which St Thomas never abandoned) can only be a fruitful enrichment for scholastic theology itself.

IV. SAINT AND LITURGICAL SYMBOLISM

I. The Specific Character of Liturgical Symbolism

Liturgical symbolism differs from religious symbolism in general and from every other kind of human symbolism in that it symbolizes and represents truths, realities, or concepts and ideas of a supernatural order.

The liturgy itself attests this in many passages. It suffices to recall, for example: 1) the Preface for Christmas, where the entire profound reality of religious and liturgical symbolism is concisely described in the words: *dum visibiliter Deum cognoscimus, per hunc in invisibilium amorem rapiamur*. 2) The ancient *Oremus* used on the feast of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist, which comes from the ancient Gelasian Sacramentary (cod. Vat. Rel. 316), says: *"Conferat nobis, Domine, s. Ioannis B. solemnitas, ut et magnifica sacra..."*

4. Things

In the liturgy, the most varied things are employed in the most diverse ways: vestments, furnishings, utensils, liturgical buildings, objects from the plant or animal kingdoms or the insensible world, works of art, etc. Many of these "things" are necessary even for the ordinary daily life of human beings: water, light, fire, a house, clothing, food, etc. Some are used without symbolism, while others, even in civil and everyday usage, are not free from symbolic meanings and interpretations. It suffices to recall the common symbolism of water, light, fire (fusion), salt as a preservative, certain flowers or trees (lily, rose, violet, palm, laurel, etc.), and certain colors (with meanings varying according to the usage of different peoples). Many of these symbolisms are entirely natural and arise from the original purpose of the things themselves; others are more conventional, based on differing psychological determinations peculiar to various populations (black as the color of mourning among Indo-Europeans, white instead among the Chinese, Japanese, and neighboring peoples; the kiss as a sign of love and tenderness among Eurasian peoples, but unknown among Negroid populations, etc.). Many such symbolisms, natural and common in themselves, have also passed into the worship of these same peoples and, consequently, into the worship of the Catholic Church. Many of them were later interpreted symbolically by liturgical scholars, especially medieval ones, beginning with Amalarius (9th century). Often, too, a thing used in the liturgy, originally without explicit symbolism, was later honored with a particular blessing, and this soon led to a symbolic interpretation as well. This is the case with many sacramentals.

Let us now consider some of the most well-known symbols:

a) Light. — A symbol of God, and especially of Christ (the true Paschal Light), of Faith, and of the illumination received in Baptism; it is also a symbol of offering and sacrifice, as the luminous matter is consumed in its own flame (Eucharistic lamp). The use of illumination, necessary in itself, soon acquired a symbolic interpretation, as in antiquity; for example, the illumination of cities on the holy night of Easter.

b) The Sun. — The great solar lamp, in all religions, holds particular importance, being itself deified or at least considered a symbol and image of divinity. Christianity, while preserving the pre-existing reality of solar symbolism, so common in antiquity, and uniting it with the supernatural reality, followed the direction given by the Lord Himself, who presented Himself, in human terms, as *"the light of the world"* (Jn 8:12). Christianity thus made particular use of solar symbolism, which was especially felt in antiquity, being much closer to us than the various solar cults that flourished in ancient paganism (cf. J. Dölger, *Sol Salutis*).

c) Water. — Also widely used symbolically and interpreted in various ways in all religions, water is employed in Christian rites as a sign of lustration and purification, accompanied by various blessings and giving rise to different kinds of holy water, from ordinary blessed water to waters mixed with other substances (ashes, balsam, etc.) for solemn lustrations and in various consecrations (churches, bells, etc.).

d) Salt. — Salt is widely used in Catholic liturgy, especially because of its quality as a preservative. It has become a symbol of *"wisdom"* that preserves from *"insipience"* and of all supernatural gifts (grace, virtues) that preserve the soul from sin and the influence of *"the world"* (cf. Mk 9:50). Hence the use of salt in baptismal rites and in the blessing of various holy waters. However, the ancient and common use of salt as a sign of barrenness (sprinkled over destroyed and condemned cities) did not enter into ecclesiastical symbolism.

e) Incense. — Incense and incensation (used not only in ancient pagan cults but also in the ceremonial of ancient courts, since princes—first Eastern, then Roman—were considered representatives of the divinity) passed into the Church’s use with the same traditional religious symbolic meaning. It became a sign of veneration toward sacred persons (the pope, the priest as the representative of Christ in liturgical celebration) and also a sign of civil veneration, i.e., of distinction (this latter aspect being the original reason for the incensation of sacred persons). It was also used for sacred things, whether blessed or consecrated, and in any case for sacred use. Hence the practice of incensing things immediately after their blessing (branches, candles, ashes, etc.), the widespread use of incense and incensation in major consecration rites (churches, altars, bells, etc.), and of certain sacred objects or furnishings during various functions, especially in Solemn Mass (the Book of the Gospels, the altar, the Sacred Species during consecration).

f) Among sacred things that have gradually been filled with symbolism, the sacred building, the church, stands out, along with all its furnishings, and above all the altar, as the place of sacrifice and the central point of the church. However, the primitive symbolisms surrounding the church and altar are relatively few and quite natural: the church (as a building) as a visible sign of the invisible Church, of which it contains a part in the liturgy, namely, the community of present-day Christians; and the altar as a sign and image of Christ. But soon, from the 3rd century onward, when the grand rites of the consecration of churches and altars began to develop, symbolisms multiplied, and the Middle Ages succeeded in attributing a symbolic interpretation to everything, often quite recherché and artificial (cf. J. Sauer, op. cit. in bibliography).

### 3. The Persons

Symbolism soon took possession of sacred persons, that is, those consecrated to the celebration of divine mysteries, namely, those engaged in worship, beginning with the people themselves, the cantors, the various ministers, up to the highest dignitaries. The fundamental symbolism, which is largely based on revealed truths and thus on invisible realities, is the representation of Christ, the Apostles or disciples of Christ, and the Church as the common community of the faithful and as a figure of the future eternal Jerusalem. Here too the Middle Ages went far in explanations and interpretations, even arbitrary ones; yet the real foundation remains as indicated above, whereby the entire sacred community, including the presiding celebrants, is surrounded by rites and ceremonies that are themselves symbolic and representative (kisses, reverences, bows, genuflections, incensations, etc.). Even the vestments worn by those engaged in worship soon received mystical interpretations, especially in the Middle Ages. The arrangement of sacred vestments and their decoration, as well as the canon of liturgical colors, also depends in part on these symbolisms. Certain sacred persons, including from the early Middle Ages princes (emperors, kings), then received a special consecration or blessing that rendered them capable of acting and functioning according to the demands of their office; some of these transmissions of office and dignity are, in the Church, true Sacraments by divine institution (v. below), while other blessings are constituted sacramental.

### 4. The Numbers

A certain importance in liturgies is held by the symbolism of numbers, a universal human element from the earliest times. According to the very ancient and widespread use of the duodecimal system, the numbers 3, 4, 9, 12, 24, etc., are commonly emphasized. The Old Testament knows this symbolism and amplifies it with the numbers 7 and 40 and others less significant. These same numbers pass into the symbolism of the New Testament and thus into the liturgy, though often with a new foundation drawn from Revelation, such as the Most Holy Trinity, the seven Sacraments, the twelve Apostles, the twenty-four elders, and so on. Some liturgical elements are explicitly based on numerical symbolism, such as the triple repetition (in litanies like the Kyrie), the seven candlesticks in ancient papal liturgy (later adopted in episcopal liturgy), the twelve crosses in the consecration of churches (representing the Apostles, the gates of the heavenly Jerusalem), and many others.

### 5. The Animals

Antiquity and the Middle Ages insist greatly on animal symbolism; one need only consider the *Physiologus* and medieval bestiaries, Romanesque and Gothic sculpture, and the animal figures in Lombard, Irish, and Romanesque initials. The lion, symbol of Christ himself but also of the devil (a typical example of multivalent symbolism), the fish, the sheep, the eagle, later the pelican, the fox and the hare, and the serpent display a wealth of symbolism widely applied especially in sacred art, and at times, for certain categories, even in military contexts.

### 6. Sacramental Symbolism

In the administration of the Sacraments proper, a distinction must be made between accidental and secondary symbolisms and the true sacramental symbolism in the strict and direct sense. The Sacraments of the Church, by immediate divine institution, are intended to produce supernatural and inherently invisible effects; to render them perceptible to men, they have been bound to visible signs or symbols, which not only signify but also, normally—unless there is a peremptory obstacle—effect the specific sacramental grace, in conjunction with the sacramental form that determines and circumscribes the efficacy of the external sign (action). Here we are confronted with a true symbolism, or imaginative representation through an external act that has a natural and direct relationship of similarity or connection with the thing signified. Yet this sacramental-symbolic act, which together with the form constitutes the Sacrament, is then surrounded and enriched by a greater or lesser quantity of other symbolic actions that are not essential to the Sacrament itself but belong to its liturgical execution. The most common sacramental symbol is the imposition of the hand or hands, as a sign and testimony of the transmission or exercise of a power or faculty over the person to whom it is applied (e.g., Penance, Holy Orders). In Baptism, the sacramental symbol consists in immersion in water (burial) and emersion (resurrection); in the Eucharist, it is the form of a sacrificial banquet, while the sacrifice is represented under the form of two separate sacramental species; anointing with oil, on the other hand, is the sacramental symbol in the Anointing of the Sick, a sign of the healing of the soul from sin and its consequences.

Sacramental symbolism has undergone variations and developments over the centuries, sometimes even in the form of simplification or reduction, unfortunately not always without loss of immediate perception of the symbolism itself, that is, of the image. Thus, for example, the essential rite of Baptism has today commonly been reduced to the form of a quick ablution of the head; yet, as is clear from the primitive sacramental ceremony and from the dogmatic explanations of St. Paul (especially Rom. 6), the sacramental symbolism of Baptism consisted in complete immersion under water, followed by emersion, as a real and concrete image of Christ’s burial under the earth and His subsequent resurrection. The true and fundamental symbolism of Baptism, with the current rite of ablution, has become so weakened, both among the faithful and among priests, that it is no longer perceived; in its place has come the idea of washing, a symbolism that retains something of the primitive meaning. St. Thomas (Sum. Theol., 3a, q. 66, a. 8) summarizes the question of sacramental symbolism in Baptism in these terms: “It must be said that in immersion the figure of Christ’s burial is expressly represented, and therefore this manner of baptizing is the best and most common. But in other modes of baptizing, something of this is represented, though not so expressly. For in whatever way the ablution is performed, the body of man or some part of it is placed under water, just as the body of Christ was placed under the earth.”

Similarly, the primitive imposition of hands on the penitent in the sacrament of Penance has been reduced to a barely perceptible gesture before absolution; in the celebration of the Holy Mass, the original symbolism of the table at which all are gathered is today, compared to primitive rites, very difficult to recognize.

The question of sacramental symbolism today, in the climate of liturgical restoration and from a particular pastoral perspective, has acquired new importance, all the more so as the present generation is generally less capable of and inclined toward such symbolisms.