320 The Honey-Makers 



symbolical of the temptations of the flesh on the one hand, 

 and of purity on the other. 



The bee, in so far as it lived pure and unspotted with 

 clean wings in the midst of honey, was a symbol of the 

 soul which kept itself pure and unspotted from the temp- 

 tations of the senses. 



Honey, as symbolical of purity, was used the day on 

 which Christ rose from the dead, when it was mingled 

 with milk in the communion cup. 



A drop of honey was also put into the mouth of the 

 child at baptism, the gift of pure bees, symbolizing spiritual 

 purity. 



Honey was also eaten on Maundy Thursday, and in 

 some places is still, probably with its old significance of 

 purification, and as a preparation for Easter. 



Upon the Jewish New Year Day a piece of apple dipped 

 in honey is eaten previous to the elaborate evening meal, 

 a prayer being offered to the " Creator of the fruit of the 

 earth," the fruit and the honey symbolizing prosperity or 

 " sweet peace." 



Bees were to the early Christians, as to the pagans of 

 Greece and Italy, an emblem of eloquence and wisdom, 

 and are fabled to have placed themselves upon the lips of 

 many of the Fathers of the Church when they were in their 

 infancy, so that Saint Ambrose, Saint Isidor, Saint Domini- 

 cns, and others were treated by them as of old Plato, 

 Pindar, and other pagan writers were treated. 



Because of their eloquence, which was said to be as sweet 

 as honey, a bee-hive was the emblem of Chrysostom, of 

 Ambrose, and of the so-called Doctor Mellifluus, Bernard 

 of Clairvaux. 



The Nestorian bishop Shelemon, about 1222 a. d., wrote 

 in Syriac the " Book of the Bee," the object and method 

 of which he explains in an address to a brother bishop, — 



