9. To sit cross leg’d, or with our fingers pectinated or shut together, is accounted bad, and friends will perswade us from it. The same conceit religiously possessed the Ancients, as is observable from Pliny. Poplites alternis genibus imponere nefas olim; and also from Athenæus, that it was an old veneficious practice, and Juno is made in this posture to hinder the delivery of Alcmena. And therefore, as Pierius observeth, in the Medal of Julia Pia, the right hand of Venus was made extended with the inscription of Venus, Genetrix; for the complication or pectination of the fingers was an Hieroglyphick of impediment, as in that place he declareth.
10. The set and statary times of pairing of nails, and cutting of hair, is thought by many a point of consideration; which is perhaps but the continuation of an ancient superstition. For piaculous it was unto the Romans to pare their nails upon the Nundinæ, observed every ninth day; and was also feared by others in certain daies of the week; according to that of Ausonius, Ungues Mercurio, Barbam Jove, Cypride Crines; and was one part of the wickedness that filled up the measure of2 Chron.33. Manasses, when ’tis delivered that he observed times.
11. A common fashion it is to nourish hair upon the mouls of the face; which is the perpetuation of a very ancient custom; and though innocently practised among us, may have a superstitious original, according to that of Pliny, Nævos in facie tondere religiosum habent nunc multi. From the like might proceed the fears of poling Elvelocks or complicated hairs of the head, and also of locks longer than the other hair; they being votary at first, and dedicated upon occasion; preserved with great care, and accordingly esteemed by others, as appears by that of Apuleius, Adjuro per dulcem capilli tui nodulum.
12. A custom there is in most parts of Europe to adorn Aqueducts, spouts and Cisterns with Lions heads: which though no illaudable ornament, is of an Egyptian genealogy,[8] who practised the same under a symbolical illation. For because the Sun being in Leo, the flood of Nilus was at the full, and water became conveyed into every part, they made the spouts of their Aqueducts through the head of a Lion. And upon some cœlestial respects it is not improbable the great Mogul or Indian King doth bear for his Arms a Lion and the Sun.
Symbolical significations of the girdle.
13. Many conceive there is somewhat amiss, and that as we usually say, they are unblest until they put on their girdle. Wherein (although most know not what they say) there are involved unknown considerations. For by a girdle or cincture are symbolically implied Truth, Resolution, and Readiness unto action, which are parts and vertues required in the service of God. According whereto we find that the Israelites did eat the Paschal Lamb with their loins girded; and the Almighty challenging Job, bids him gird up his loins like a man. So runneth the expression of Peter, Gird up the loins of your minds, be sober and hope to the end: so the high Priest was girt with the girdle of fine linnen: so is it part of the holy habit to have our lines girt about with truth; Isa. 11. and so is it also said concerning our Saviour, Righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins.
Moreover by the girdle, the heart and parts which God requires are divided from the inferior and concupiscential organs; implying thereby a memento unto purification and cleanness of heart, which is commonly denied from the concupiscence and affection of those parts; and therefore unto this day the Jews do bless themselves when they put on their zone or cincture. And thus may we make out the doctrin of Pythagoras, to offer sacrifice with our feet naked, that is, that our inferiour parts and farthest removed from reason might be free, and of no impediment unto us. Thus Achilles, though dipped in Styx, yet having his heel untouched by that water; although he were fortified elsewhere, he was slain in that part, as only vulnerable in the inferiour and brutal part of Man. This is that part of Eve and her posterity the devil still doth bruise, that is, that part of the soul which adhereth unto earth, and walks in the paths thereof. And in this secundary and symbolical sense it may be also understood, when the Priests in the Law washed their feet before the sacrifice; when our Saviour washed the feet of his Disciples, and said unto Peter, If I wash not thy feet thou hast no part in me. And thus is it symbolically explainable, and implyeth purification and cleanness, when in the burnt offerings the Priest is commanded to wash the inwards and legs thereof in water; and in the peace and sin-offerings, to burn the two kidneys, the fat which is about the flanks, and as we translate it, the Caul above the Liver. But whether the Jews when they blessed themselves, had any eye unto the words of Jeremy,Jer. 13. wherein God makes them his Girdle; or had therein any reference unto the Girdle, which the Prophet was commanded to hide in the hole of the rock of Euphrates, and which was the type of their captivity, we leave unto higher conjecture.
Certain Hereticks who ascribed humane figure unto God, after which they conceived he created man in his likeness.
14. The Picture of the Creator, or God the Father in the shape of an old Man, is a dangerous piece, and in this Fecundity of sects may revive the Anthropomorphites. Which although maintained from the expression of Daniel, I beheld where the Ancient of dayes did sit, whose hair of his head was like the pure wool; yet may it be also derivative from the Hieroglyphical description of the Ægyptians; who to express their Eneph, or Creator of the world, described an old man in a blew mantle, with an egg in his mouth; which was the Emblem of the world. Surely those heathens, that notwithstanding the exemplary advantage in heaven, would endure no pictures of Sun or Moon, as being visible unto all the world, and needing no representation; do evidently accuse the practice of those pencils, that will describe invisibles. And he that challenged the boldest hand unto the picture of an Echo, must laugh at this attempt, not only in the description of invisibility, but circumscription of Ubiquity, and fetching under lines incomprehensible circularity.
The Pictures of the Ægyptians were more tolerable, and in their sacred letters more veniably expressed the apprehension of Divinity. For though they implied the same by an eye upon a Scepter, by an Ægles head, a Crocodile, and the like: yet did these manual descriptions pretend no corporal representations; nor could the people misconceive the same unto real correspondencies. So though the Cherub carried some apprehension of Divinity, yet was it not conceived to be the shape thereof: and so perhaps because it is metaphorically predicated of God, that he is a consuming fire, he may be harmlessly described by a flaming representation; Yet if, as some will have it, all mediocrity of folly is foolish, and because an unrequitable evil may ensue, an indifferent convenience must be omitted; we shall not urge such representments; we could spare the holy Lamb for the picture of our Saviour, and the Dove or fiery Tongues to represent the holy Ghost.