IS THE FISH A CHRISTIAN
OR ROMAN SYMBOL?
"Therefore take good heed to yourselves. Since you saw no form on the day that the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire,
beware lest you act corruptly by making a graven image for yourselves, in the form of any figure: … the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth".
(Deuteronomy 4:15-18)
The symbol of the fish, considered symbol of identification and recognition of the ancient Christians, does not correspond to the truth.
Let’s have a look at the history:
Greeks, Romans and other pagans used the fish as a symbol before Christians. So this symbol was less suspicious than the cross and was a perfect secret symbol for persecuted Christians. That’s the reason why the first Christians made a practical use of this sign, for their own convenience.
It was similar to its modern usage, sticked on a car or on business cards to be recognized by strangers, even if there’s no persecution.Since the first century Christians made an acrostic of the word fish, in greek "ichthys":
Ieosous Christos Theou Yios Soter (ICTYS) whose translation is Jesus Christ Son of God Saviour. The greek word Ichthus (Iota, Chi Theta Upsilon Sigma) pronounced ich-thoos, is the word used for fish in the New Testament.The fish had many biblical meanings: Jesus feeding 5000 people with 2 fishes and 5 pieces of bread; Jesus calling his disciples "fishers of men". That’s why the symbol of a fish is an easy association: fishers of men and the acronym ICTYS which stands for fish in Greek and here you are the symbol representing a fish.
Nevertheless this particular symbol has deep pagan roots, prior to Christianity. Let’s analyze some:
Before Christianity adopted the symbol of the fish, it represented the "Great Mother".
Romans called Venus the goddess of sexual fertility. The modern words "venerale" or venereal diseases come from this name. Friday was her sacred day because it was believed that the planet called Venus governed Friday’s first hour. For this reason it was called "dies Veneris". Fish was considered sacred to her. The picture above, seen in the book "Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism", represents the goddess Venus with her symbol, the fish. The similarity between Venus and Freya (Babilonia’s mother-goddess) suggests the fact that the two were the same personification.
The same association between mother-goddess and the symbol fish-fertility is evident between different goddesses. The fish was considered sacred to goddess Ashtoreh, the pagan goddess adored by those
Israelites who abandoned God (I King 11:33) During ancient reign of Egypt Isis was represented with a fish on her head, as we can see below.
As a matter of fact, the divinity Dagon of Philistian is a diminutive form derived from the Semitic root dag, which means little fish. This name indicates a fish-shaped god, as demonstrated below. Even the Bible suggests this, referring to dagon adored in the temple of Ashdod. (1 Samuel 5:4-5) Different Philistian and Phoenician coins point out that dagon was composed by a human body on his upper part and by a fish for the rest. He was a Fish-god. Dagon is often associated with the fish-goddess "Derceto" o "Atargatis", usually identified with Astarte.
I
t’s interesting to observe in certain churches, the mitre worn by prelates. Where does its shape come from? Dr. Thomas Inman talks about this phenomenon in his two books "Ancient Faiths Embodies in Ancient Names", (1869) He includes the description of a sculpture from Mesopotamia representing a man dressed like a fish, wearing a mitre on his head. These priests were wearing a mystical bag. Inman says: "In all representations the hat has the same shape of modern prelat’s mitre. (On this argument you can read "The Two Babylon of Hislop"). The fish is also depicted in a sacred iconography of Avatars of Vishnu where the divinity comes out from a fish’s mouth. Since he’s a fish himself, the legend has to be interpreted as "saviour" of the world in a coming "flood".
Now, we need to establish which is the origin and where this symbol has started to appear in Christian sphere.
Here the words of Dr. Alberto Rivera former Jesuit bishop, who studied three years at the secret underground archives of Vatican for his preparation to be a secret agent, before God saved him:
Before using these symbols, Christians used to recite a random line of the Bible. They used to do this when meeting other people who claimed to be Christian, because of the persecution of Romans.
If the other person managed to finish the line, they knew he was a believer. This was a serious problem to Nero. His spies studied the Bible to infiltrate among true Christians, but many of them were saved because they believed the Word of God. They needed to do something.So during the 60’s A.D. Nero’s spies started using Christian symbols as an alternative to the Bible, to be recognized. Symbols like: fish, rainbow, dove, bread, vine.
I discovered that Nero’s persecution methods were very elaborated. He founded false Christian churches. Many of them used to gather in Jewish synagogue to trap true believers in Christ.Nevertheless the paper on Constantine revealed that for more than 200 years the emperors did not manage to destroy the true Christianity. Many spies were upset when they discovered that all their efforts had the result to bring true Christians towards God’s Word. And they saw Christians becoming stronger and stronger.
(http://www.chick.com/reading/comics/0112/albertoinfo.asp)
(Alberto part Fifth, pag. 3, 9, 10)
Printed August 2005
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