Fig. 280.—The Church as a Dove with Six Wings. A Franco-German Miniature of the XI. Cent. From Christian Iconography (Didron).
The name Proserpine is seemingly akin to Pure Serpent—the same Serpent, perhaps, whose form is represented in extenso at Avebury: the Bona Dea of Crete was figured holding serpents and the nude figure on the left of Fig. 279 has been ingeniously, and, I think, rightly interpreted by Borlase as Truth, or Vera. It was doubtless some such similar emblem as originated the ridiculous story that St. Christine of Tyre was “tortured” by having live serpents placed at her breasts: “The two asps hung at her breasts and did her no harm, and the two adders wound them about her neck and licked up her sweat.”[542] Not only is this suffering Christine assigned to Tyre (in Italy), but she is said to have been enclosed in a certain tower and to have been set upon a burning tour or wheel. Christine is the feminine of Christ, and that Christ was identified with Sophia or Wisdom is obvious from the design herewith.
Fig. 281.—Jesus Christ as Saint Sophia. Miniature of Lyons, XII. Cent. From Christian Iconography (Didron).
The Sicilian coins of Janus depicted Columba or the Dove, and the same symbol of the Cretan, Epheia, Britomart, Athene, or Rhea figures in the hand of the Elf on page 627, and on the reverse of other British coins illustrated on the same page. The Dove is the acknowledged symbol of the Holy Ghost, yet the symbolists depicted even the immaculate Dove as duplex: the six wings of the parti-coloured Columba have in all probability an ultimate connection with the six beneficent world-supervisors of the Persian philosophy.
Fig. 282.—The Holy Ghost, as a Child, Floating on the Waters. From a Miniature of the XIV. Cent. From Christian Iconography (Didron).
In the Christian emblem below, the Holy Ghost is represented as a Child floating on the Waters of Chaos between the circles of Day and Night, and that the Supreme was the Parent alike of both Good and Evil is expressed in the verse: “I form the light and create darkness; I make peace and create evil. I, the Lord, do all these things.” The preceding sentence runs: “There is none beside me. I am the Lord and there is none else.”[543] That this idea was prevalent among the Druids of the west is strongly to be inferred from an ancient chant still current among the Bretons, which begins—
Beautiful child of the Druid, answer me right well.