Hooke, S.H. Fish Symbolism,
Folklore, 71, 1960, pp. 535 – 537.
Fish Symbolism
by
S. H. HOOKE
THIS
brief sketch of the history of one element in the vast vocabulary of symbolism
is offered in respectful and affectionate homage to a great scholar. The
offering may be regarded as having a certain appropriateness, since the fish in
one of its aspects is a symbol of immortality, and Dr Margaret Murray would
seem to have discovered the secret of immortality. Fifty years ago I had the
privilege and pleasure of learning from Dr Murray the first rudiments of
Egyptology, and she still goes on dispensing to students the treasures of her
rich and varied scholarship.
Beginning with Egypt, as is fitting, we
find that the sacred oxyrhynchus fish devoured the phallus of Osiris, according
to various forms of the Osiris myth. This implication of the fish as a symbol
of the divine source of life is developed in the Hellenistic period as appears
from a tomb painting from Gamboud, l in which the mummy, lying on a lion bed is
gazing at an oxyrhynchus fish above him. Here the sacred fish replaces the
usual Ka bird symbol, indicating the hope of immortality. Egyptian priests were
forbidden to eat fish at all, although fish-eating was obligatory for the laity
on certain days of the month.
Fish symbolism in Mesopotamia appears in
various forms. Berosus preserves the ancient Sumerian tradition that the
earliest kings before the Flood, headed by Oannes, came up out of the Red Sea
in fish-like form, bringing the earliest civilization with them. On the
well-known Lamashtu tablet, apotropaic in significance, two priests are
represented in fish-masks standing by the bed of a sick person, warding off the
attacks of Lamashtu and her attendant evil demons. One of the forms assumed by
Ea, the god of magic and friend of mankind, was the goat-fish. A different and
very important aspect of Mesopotamian fish-symbolism is the mythical
sea-monster Tiamat, vanquished by Marduck, and reappearing in Ugaritic
mythology as the Hydra Lotan, slain by Baal, and as
1
E. Goodenough, Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman World, VI, p. 14.
p.536
Leviathan
of Hebrew mythology, slain by Yahweh. Leviathan acquired an eschatological
significance in later Rabbinical speculation and became the fish-course in the
Messianic banquet enjoyed by the righteous in the Messianic age. In ritual
scenes depicted on various cylinder seals, 2 we frequently find a fish
accompanied by a rhomb or lozenge; the latter element is usually interpreted by
archaeologists as representing the female vulva. Hence the fertility aspect of
the fish symbol is here strongly emphasized.
Mrs Van Buren has collected the
Mesopotamian material relating to fish symbolism, and suggests that the fish,
as coming from the sea, is connected with the underworld, and has chthonic
associations. She also suggests, however, that in very early times they
symbolized life, and that the later conception of re-birth caused them to be
used in funerary rites. 3 On some Mesopotamian seals birds are depicted as
eating or attempting to eat the fish, and in this connexion Professor Erwin
Goodenough, to whose monumental work on Jewish symbols in the Greco-Roman world
this article is largely indebted, has made the interesting comment, 'This
conception of the destruction of life as itself a hope of life is a paradox
which we shall see constantly recurring with other symbols, to the point that
it is the dead Saviour on the cross which is the most hopeful symbol of life in
our civilization. And our hope of life is symbolized as we, like the ancient
birds and the people at the banquets, eat the life symbol in the torn flesh of
the murdered saviour.' 4
Early Hebrew tradition evidently regarded
Dagon, the Philistine god who was so humiliatingly shattered by the presence of
Israel's sacred ark, as a fish-god. But it is now generally recognized that
Dagon is the Mesopotamian god Dagan, a corn-god, never represented in fish
form. Nevertheless Syria had its fish-goddess, Atargatis, whose priests offered
fish daily on her altars, and the evidence would seem to indicate that fish was
a ritual food of the priests, but was tabu to the layman. An aetiological
legend explaining the fish tabu related that Atargatis was born from an egg
brought up from the Euphrates by a fish and hatched by a dove; hence fish was
not eaten as food. The legend also points to the
2
E. Goodenough, op. cit., fig. 16.
3
E. Van Buren, Fish Offerings in Ancient Mesopotamia (quoted by
Goodenough, op. cit., p. 15.
4.
E. Goodenough, op. cit., p. 16.
p.537
diffusion
of the fish symbolism from Mesopotamia to Syria and Phoenicia.
In Greece the dolphin, though not a fish
but a mammal, became the centre of piscine myth and symbolism. It was
associated both with Dionysus and Apollo. There is rich symbolism in the
well-known legend of the kidnapping of the young Dionysus by Tyrrhenian pirates;
the god changed the pirates into dolphins, and the mast and rigging of the ship
into a vine with clusters of grapes. Eisler suggested that in the orgiastic
rites of the Maenads a fish might have been torn in pieces and devoured; but
his evidence does not seem convincing on this point. The dolphin is also
closely associated with Eros and Aphrodite. Indeed the dolphin is associated
with so many gods that, as Professor Goodenough has said, it is clearly a
symbol in its own right and is 'an excellent example of the vocabulary of the
symbolic lingua franca of the period'. 5 Underlying the various dolphin legends
is the symbolism of the saviour-god, the psychopomp, carrying souls to
immortality. This is borne out by the frequent use of the dolphin as a symbol
on Jewish and Christian graves.
In early rabbinical teaching we find that
the fish has become a symbol of the pious swimming in the waters of Torah, and
it would seem most probable that Tertullian must have had Jewish symbolism in
mind when he compared Christians to little fish swimming in the waters of
baptism.6 But fish symbolism reached its climax in the early Christian use of
the fish as a symbol of Christ. It is not clear whether the fact that the
letters of the Greek word for fish form an acrostic of the initials of Jesus
Christ, God's Son, Saviour, gave rise to the symbol. It is more probable that
the symbol came first, and that the acrostic was an afterthought.
The main reason, however, for the use of
the fish as a symbol of Christ lay in the Eucharistic significance of fish as
associated with bread as the food of the faithful at the Eucharist. This
transformation of the symbol begins with the eucharistic interpretation of the
feeding of the five thousand, an interpretation which is as early as the Fourth
Gospel. In various representations of the Last Supper in early Christian art,
bread and fish are depicted on the table, where fish takes the place of wine as
one of the two elements in the Eucharist.
6
E. Goodenough, op. cit., p. 26.
6
Tertullian, De Baptismo, 1.
p.538
In Jewish apocalyptic and in later
rabbinic speculation the great fish Leviathan, originally a symbol of
destruction and hostility, has become the food of the faithful at the Messianic
banquet in the age to come.