Signs. Part I.
by Mrs. Colles.
Volume 4, 1893/4, pgs. 334-337
"All that meets the bodily sense I deem
Symbolical--one mighty alphabet
For infant minds! and we in this low world,
Place with our backs to bright Reality,
That we may learn with young unwounded ken
The substance from the shadow!"
S. T. Coleridge
As the close observation of Darwin has taught us to see in the development of the embryo of plant or animal, a microcosm of that of the Human Race, so according to the deep-sighted teaching of F. D. Maurice in the calling and education of the Chosen People, may we read microcosmically those of the whole Human Family--the Race of Man.
If this be so, the parallel between the special religious training given to the Jew, and that which man as a whole, and which we of this generation as part of the whole man, are receiving now, ought to be perceptible enough to throw light on the difficulties which we have to encounter in learning to know what God would teach us.
We go to the history of the Chosen People, as to a Primer of Human History, and in the study of it are forced to recognise the large share which Symbolism took in their education, by which word "education" we may understand their growth in the knowledge of God, of His kingdom, and of His will.
They were taught by figures, acts and appearances unlike the things which they represented, and yet intended to point continually to these things, were constantly before their eyes in the worship of the tabernacle and the temple.
The Epistle to the Hebrews is the great inspired commentary on this fact, and we cannot but be familiar with its interpretation of the spiritual meaning of the symbols to which it calls attention, how the death of the sacrificed animal pointed to that of the Lamb of God, the institution of the priesthood to Him as the Great High Priest, etc., spiritual truth of inexhaustible value to the Church throughout all ages.
But what specially strikes the modern mind--trained to value that spiritual truth, and moulded in thought by its character--trained also by the progressive insight of prophetic teaching to see through and above the material and formal act, is the huge unlikeness of the sign to the thing signified in these symbolic acts of Jewish worship. Impressive they no doubt were. The blood of bulls and of goats may have spoken strongly of a total yielding up of life to its author, and of absolute self-surrender.
The dumb creature's unresisting submission did certainly convey a striking lesson to the restless human will, yet the mode of teaching appears to us now crude, "carnal,"--appealing chiefly, one would say, to very immature and uncultivated imaginations. We can well understand the exclamation of the Psalmist, "Thou delightest not in burnt offerings," and again when speaking in the person of God, "Will I eat the flesh of bulls and drink the blood of goats?"
The more spiritual and higher view of the prophets seemed almost to recoil from the forms of such religious worship. It was "a constant protest against the sacrificial system of Levitical ritual, which they either, in comparison with the moral law, disparage altogether, or else fix their hearers' attention to the moral and spiritual truth which lay behind it." Our natural feeling now is: "Why was not something higher and more lovely used to lift the minds of this people to those spiritual truths?" "and would not the form of teaching have been in itself more elevating, had it for instance, taken that of noble art, such as produced the glorious statues of the Greek?" Were not the winged Mercury, the Jove, the Sun-God Apollo worthier symbols of the ways and thoughts of Deity, and would they not tend to produce closer communion of mind with the Divine Mind than could be produced by such sights as met the eye of the Jew?
One answer is both clear and familiar to us. The very perfection of Greek Symbolism formed its dangerous and debasing tendency. The statues of the Greeks were sufficiently satisfactory symbols of the idea of God to become objects of worship. Therefore no image of Him, nor the likeness of anything in heaven or earth, not even beautiful ones were allowed in Jewish worship. Perhaps this is also the reason why all the mere ceremonial of approach to God was kept from anything of a too aesthetic nature. True, there was beauty and melody in the Temple Service, but never enough to hide that gross "carnal" butcher's work, with its many disgusting accompaniments which are so minutely described in the Levitical books.
The sign was very unlike the thing signified; it was meant to disappoint and baffle the spiritual appetite--that of the increasingly spiritual man,--even more than to feed his hunger and thirst after righteousness, so that he should come to say with intense emphasis, "It is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins."
Now going back to the thought with which we began, namely that the religious education of the Jew, is a microcosm of the religious training of man, of the human race, from first to last, where do we find in human life universally and through all time this character of teaching by symbol?
Surely we find it in the entire universe as it impresses the mind of man at every stage of his conscious existence. Literally and exactly we are being taught by symbols in everything that our senses apprehend.
Certain sensations in the brain of each individual are the Signs by which he recognises the facts outside him. He is aware of them in no other way, and these sensations are by their very nature unlike the objects which give rise to them. They are but symbols--not pictures--hieroglyphics merely. We do indeed "see as in a mirror dimly" in this stage of our existence, and are being slowly taught that "we know nothing yet as we ought to know." And what is the conclusion professing to rest upon science, which is the special danger of this age? Is it not materialism--an acquiescence in the conclusion that there is no spiritual--nothing but "carnal" signs--signs which mean nothing, and point to no "thing signified;" "Cells" and brain changes, mere movements of matter--we are tempted to believe that these are all!
And how is this tendency met by the lesson of the training of that microcosm of humanity--the Chosen People? By this answer surely "You are being educated as we were." We are the embryo in whose growth you see your own. By signs unlike, yet witnessing for mighty spiritual truths were we slowly, painfully, often bafflingly trained to hope and long for and expect the Fulfiller of all types. No other way of being trained was really good for us in our crude and immature state. The very imperfection of the symbol to satisfy the hunger which it aroused stimulated the exercise by which we grew. So is it still with us. It is God's way--the wisest way--the most effectual, that we should as yet "see as in a glass darkly." So with Faith and Hope and Love grow and make us capable of the higher Revelation when the "good appointed time" is fulfilled. In the meantime our probation lies in the very effort to apprehend the Invisible behind the Visible, and to take the sign as indeed a sign, and as implyingly therefore the existence of that of which it is a sign, namely, God and His Revelation of Himself.
(To be continued.)
Proofread by LNL, Jul. 2023