354 DIVERSIONS OF A NATURALIST 



this cult should have lodged itself by obscure means in 

 the practices of the early Church. 



The most remarkable outcome of this is the recogni- 

 tion of the fish as the symbol of Christ. The letters of 

 the Greek name for fish IX0TS (ichthus) can be inter- 

 preted as an acrostic, the component letters of the word 

 taken in order being the first letters of the words ^iTjaovi 

 XpiaToi Qeov Ttoy, Xa>Ti]p (Jesous Christos Theou Uios 

 Soter), which are in English " Jesus Christ Son of God, 

 Saviour." This coincidence enabled the pagan wor- 

 shippers of the fish-god to make their symbol or " totem " 

 (using that word in a broad sense) the symbol of the 

 Christian religion. Whether the use of the fish and of 

 the letters of the Greek name for it was or was not 

 independently started by the early Christians, its employ- 

 ment must have conciliated the fish-worshipping pagans, 

 and rendered it easy to bring them into the fellowship of 

 the Christian Church. Hence we see that a fish has 

 more to do with Christianity than appears at first sight. 

 It is quite possible that whilst the cult of the fish-god or 

 fish-goddess may have involved at one period of its 

 growth an abstention from the eating of fish or of 

 particular species of fish as being sacred, yet the very 

 ancient belief in " contagious magic " and the acquire- 

 ment of the qualities of a man or an animal by eating 

 his flesh, may have in the end prevailed and led to the 

 eating of fish, the sacred symbol, on the fast days pre- 

 scribed by the Church, when a special significance would 

 be attached to such food as was sanctioned. 



The evidence of the connexion of the early Christian 

 Church with fish worship becomes convincing when once 

 the importance of the great secret cult of the " 0)?^heists " 

 and its connexion both with early Christianity and with 

 fish worship is recognized. 



