PRAYING TO THE WEST.
(Vol. viii., p. 343. &c.)
The setting sun and the darkness of evening has been immemorially connected with death, just as the rising orb and the light of morning with life. In Sophocles (Œdipus Rex, 179.), Pluto is called ἕσπερος θεός; and the "Oxford translation" has the following note on the line:
"In Lysia's Oration against Andocides is this passage: To expiate this pollution (the mutilation of the Hermæ), the priestesses and priests turning towards the setting sun, the dwelling of the infernal gods, devoted with curses the sacrilegious wretch, and shook their purple robes, in the manner prescribed by that law, which has been transmitted from the earliest times."—Mitford, History of Greece, ch. xxii.
Liddell and Scott consider Ἔρεβος (the nether gloom) to be derived from ἐρέφω, to cover; akin to ἐρεμνός, and probably also to Hebrew erev or ereb, our eve-ning; and mention as analogous the Egyptian Amenti, Hades, from ement, the west. (Wilkinson's Egyptians, ii. 2. 74.)
Turning to the East on solemn occasions is a practice more frequently mentioned. There is an interesting note on the subject in the Translation above quoted, at Œdipus Col., 477.,
"χοὰς χέασθαι στάντα πρὸς πρώτην ἕω,"
and doubtless much more may be found in the commentators. The custom, as is well known, found its way into the Christian Church.
"The primitive Christians used to assemble on the steps of the basilica of St. Peter, to see the first rays of the rising sun, and kneel, curvatis cervicibus in honorem splendidi orbis. (S. Leo. Serm. VII. De Nativ.) The practice was prohibited, as savouring of, or leading to, Gentilism. (Bernino, i. 45.)"—Southey's Common-Place Book, ii. 44.
"The rule of Orientation, though prescribed in the Apostolic Constitutions, never obtained in Italy, where the churches are turned indiscriminately towards every quarter of the heaven."—Quarterly Review, vol. lxxv. p. 382.
In the Reformed Church in England the custom is recognised, as far as the position of the material church goes. (See rubric at the beginning of the Communion Service.) "The priest shall stand at the north side of the table;" but turning eastward at the Creeds has no sanction that I know of, but usage. (Compare Wheatly On the Common Prayer, ch. ii. § 3., ch. iii. § 8.; and Williams, The Cathedral ("Stanzas on the Cloisters"), xxiv.-xxviii.)
The rationale of western paradise is given in the following extract, with which I will conclude:
"When the stream of mankind was flowing towards the West, it is no wonder that the weak reflux of positive information from that quarter should exhibit only the impulses of hope and superstition. Greece was nearly on the western verge of the world, as it was known to Homer; and it was natural for him to give wing to his imagination as he turned towards the dim prospects beyond.... All early writers in Greece believed in the existence of certain regions situated in the West beyond the bounds of their actual knowledge, and, as it appears, of too fugitive a nature ever to be fixed within the circle of authentic geography. Homer describes at the extremity of the ocean the Elysian plain, "where, under a serene sky, the favourites of Jove, exempt from the common lot of mortals, enjoy eternal felicity." Hesiod, in like manner, sets the Happy Isles, the abode of departed heroes, beyond the deep ocean. The Hesperia of the Greeks continually fled before them as their knowledge advanced, and they saw the terrestrial paradise still disappearing in the West."—Cooley's History of Maritime Discov., vol. i. p. 25., quoted in Anthon's Horace.
A. A. D.