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Again, types and emblems without number were seen in the language of the Psalmist, occurring so continuously in the services of the Church. 'His faithfulness shall be thy buckler,' gives rise to a fine allegory of S. Bernard's, drawn from the triangular shape of the buckler used at the time when that Father wrote; even as we still see it, in the effigies of early knights. It protects the upper part of the body completely: the feet are less completely shielded. And so, remarks the saint, does God's providence guard His people from spiritual dangers, imaged by those weapons which attack the upper, or more vital parts of the body: but from temporal adversities He hath neither promised, nor will give so complete protection.
To mention the symbolism which attached itself to the worship of the early Church, would be to go through all its rites. Confirmation and Matrimony, and, above all, Baptism, were attended by ceremonies in the highest degree symbolical. But it is needless to dwell on them; enough has been said to prove the attachment which the Catholic Church has ever evinced to symbolism.
But the Sign of the Cross is that which gave the greatest scope to symbolism.—Our readers will probably remember the passage of Tertullian in which he says, 'we cross ourselves when we go out, and when we come in; when we lie down, and when we rise up,' etc. Indeed, as in everything they used, so in everything they saw, the Sign of the Cross. The following lines from Donne are much to the purpose:
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Since Christ embraced the Cross itself, dare I
His Image, th' Image of His Cross, deny?
Would I have profit by the Sacrifice,
And dare the chosen Altar to despise?
It bore all other sins, but is it fit
That it should bear the sin of scorning it?
Who from the picture would avert his eye,
How should he fly His pains, Who there did die?
From me no pulpit, nor misgrounded law.
Nor scandal taken, shall this Cross withdraw:
It shall not—nor it cannot—for the loss
Of this Cross were to me another Cross:
Better were worse: for no affliction.
No cross were so extreme, as to have none.
Who can blot out the Cross, which th' instrument
Of God dewed on him in the Sacrament?
Who can deny me power and liberty
'To stretch mine arms, and mine own Cross to be?
Swim—and at every stroke thou art thy Cross:
The mast and yard are theirs whom seas do toss.
Look down, thou seest our crosses in small things,
Look up, thou seest birds fly on crossed wings.
We will mention but one symbolical feature more in the trains of thought which were common among the early Christians. We refer to the esoteric meaning which was supposed to exist in the writings of heathen authors: as for example, when the Pollio of Virgil was imagined to point to the Saviour, and the Fortunate Isles of Pindar to Paradise. It were easy but needless to dwell on this subject. The few instances we have given are already amply sufficient to prove to some, to remind others, how symbolical was the religion of the early Church, and (we think) to establish our case à priori.
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CHAPTER III
THE ARGUMENT FROM ANALOGY
Having dealt with the argument à priori, we now proceed to show that, from analogy, it is highly probable that the teaching of the Church, as in other things, so in her material buildings, would be symbolical.