XVIII 

 IN CHRISTIAN AND MEDIAEVAL TIMES 



The bee of the Middle Ages is a sombre bee. It does 

 not fly joyously through light-hearted love-songs, but rather 

 lends itself to purposes of moralizing, enters into magic and 

 symbolism, and becomes a part of all kinds of superstition. 



The myths of the pagan times have given place to the 

 legends of the new religion. In these Christian times it is 

 the wax which has become important, as in Greek and Latin 

 classical ages it was the honey, and in India it was the bee 

 itself; for the wax is necessary to supply the tapers burned 

 in the churches. 



The Fathers of the Church, Saint Jerome, Saint Basil, 

 TertuUian, and others got from the bee many and varied 

 allegorical references to the life of the Christian, which 

 were copied by their successors. 



The Romans are said to have established the first exten- 

 sive bee-industry on the Rhine, but the Germans were not 

 slow to follow the lead thus given them. The outposts of 

 colonization in Germany being the monasteries whose 

 monks pursued agriculture and bee-keeping, it is not sur- 

 prising that, living as they did with the bees, and closely 

 observing their orderly and remarkable habits, they too 

 drew many lessons frorn them, in addition to those they 

 received from the Latin Fathers. 



Honey, which in the pagan world everywhere symbolized 

 the pleasures of the senses, in the Christian world became 



