274 FISH IN MYTHS, SYMBOLS, DIET, MEDICINE 
has been for centuries the emblem of the Samurai, because of 
its accredited power to withstand opposition and to swim 
against the current of the stream. 
On the advent of Christianity, numerous become the 
allusions in Patristic and other literature. From the repetition 
by Father after Father of Aqua vive piscis Christus, of piscatio 
duplex, Ecclesia presens et futura, and of similar sentences, the 
application approaches perilously near the commonplace. 
Nor was its scope morally limited. St. Augustine, St. 
Cyprian, and others allegorise fish and fishing in both good and 
bad senses. 
Thus, piscis pia fides que vivit inter fluctus nec frangitur ; 
piscis fides invisibilium; rete Christus; sagena Ecclesia ; 
Christus est piscis assus discipulis, serpens Jud@is, can be 
matched by pisces immundi, peccatores ; piscis maris, demones ; 
piscator Diabolus ; rete, deceptio Diaboli; and sagena, cor 
mulieris, which last, from a technical point of view, hardly 
stamps Bishop Humbertus as a proficient in our craft. 
From the identification—Christus est piscis \—is no long 
step to the symbolic use of the very letters which spell the 
Greek word for fish: thus from IX6Y2=I-ch-th-u-s, is estab- 
lished "Incod¢ Xpiord¢ Oe0d vide owrip, or “ Jesus Christ, of God 
Son, Saviour.”’ 
This symbolic adoption in connection with their God was 
far from original. A fish, at first the symbol of Vishnu, was 
adopted by the Buddhists, and from them by the Christians 
of Turkestan.2 This adoption and adaptation of a Pagan 
symbol was but one of the many instances where Christian 
policy or Christian practice took over and continued heathen 
customs, institutions, and vestments.3 
1 Pitra, op. cit., has several plates bearing on this. Of the coloured, 
pl. 1 shows an eucharistic table with a fish and bread upon it, and at each 
side seven baskets full of the latter, while in pl. 3 a fish swims bearing on his 
head a basket with sacred loaves, both illustrative of the miracle. See also 
. 565-6, © 
ae Keller, op. cit., p. 352. The latest and best monograph on the fish- 
symbol in Christianity is that of F. J. Délger, Das Fisch-symbol in frishchristlicher 
Zeit (Freiburg, 1910), whose conclusions are summarised in the Archiv fiir 
Religionswissenschaft (1912), XV. 297 f. 
3 Cf. the many fascinating works of Dr. J. Rendel Harris, e.g. The Cult 
of the Heavenly Twins and Boanevges. Also Lowrie, Avt and Archaology; 
and Miss M. Hamilton, Greek Saints and their Festivals. 
