Public-domain ebook
by Inman, Thomas; Newton, John, M.R.C.S.E.
Language: en4,912 downloads on Project Gutenberg
Subjects
In: History - Ancient·History - Religious·Religion/Spirituality
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #38485.
This work is a scholarly compendium that pairs finely engraved woodcuts with concise explanations of ancient symbols, drawn from the authors’ larger treatise Ancient Faiths embodied in Ancient Names. The opening pages frame the volume as a “brick” taken from a much larger “house,” promising readers a focused survey of pagan and Christian emblems rather than an exhaustive dissertation. The authors, Thomas Inman and John Newton, M.R.C.S.E., situate their inquiry within a Victorian‑era concern for “overwhelming proof” of the continuity between antiquity and contemporary doctrine, while explicitly limiting themselves to visible emblems and avoiding theological debate on rites such as the Eucharist or Confession. Their preface stresses the need for careful collation, comparative analysis, and a willingness to confront the “esoteric” versus “exoteric” meanings that have long shrouded religious iconography.
Written in a measured, nineteenth‑century academic voice, the text blends meticulous description with a modest, sometimes self‑effacing tone that reflects the period’s reverence for antiquarian research. Readers who enjoy detailed symbol studies, the history of comparative religion, or the Victorian fascination with linking ancient rites to modern faiths will find the book rewarding. It appeals especially to scholars of art history, theology, and cultural anthropology who appreciate dense, source‑driven commentary rather than narrative storytelling.
The opening · free to read
The demand which has sprung up for this work has induced the Author to make it more complete than it was originally. But it could not be made perfect without being expanded into a volume whose size would be incompatible with cheapness. When every Figure would supply a text for a long discourse, a close attention is required lest a description should be developed into a dissertation.
In this work, the Author is obliged to confine himself to the explanation of symbols, and cannot launch out into ancient and modern faiths, except in so far as they are typified by the use of certain conventional signs.
A great many who peruse a book like this for the first time, and find how strange were the ideas which for some thousands of years permeated the religious opinions of the civilised world, might naturally consider that the Author is a mere visionary--one who is possessed of a hobby that he rides to death. Such a notion is strengthened by finding that there is scarcely any subject treated of except the one which associates religion, a matter of the highest aim to man, with ideas of the most intensely earthly kind. But a thoughtful reader will readily discern that an essay on Symbolism must be confined to visible emblems. By no fair means can an author who makes the crucifix his text introduce the subject of the Confessional, the Eucharist, or Extreme Unction. Nor can one, who knows that Buddha and Jesus alike inaugurated a faith which was unmarked by visible symbolism, bring into an interpretation of emblems a comparison between the preaching of two such distinguished men. In like manner, the Author is obliged to pass over the difference between Judaism, Christianity as propounded by the son of Mary, and that which passes current for Christianity in Rome and most countries of Europe.
All these points, and many more, have been somewhat fully discussed in the Author's larger work, so often referred to in this, and to that he must refer the curious. The following pages are simply a chapter taken from a book, complete perhaps in itself, but only as a brick may be perfect, without giving to an individual any idea of the size, style, or architecture of the house from which it has been taken. If readers will regard these pages as a beam in a building, the Author will be content.
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