"Hush, hush, remove clothes from the ancient idols …" - warned the poet Constantin Balmont. When humanity approves a new religion, this does not mean at all that the old gods die forever, dissolving without a trace in eternity.
Ancient archetypes hide in the depths of the collective unconscious, they sit firmly in the subconscious of each individual. And then, for example, pagan motives and symbols creep into the iconography of victorious Christianity, and rather curious creations appear - the grins of the old gods.
Why does Moses need horns?
In Christian mythology, horns are an indispensable attribute of the devil and his henchmen, devils. But pay attention to "Moses" - a sculpture of the genius of the Renaissance Michelangelo Buonarroti. On the head of the Old Testament prophet … neat horns flaunt.
I must note that both the clergy and other contemporaries of the great sculptor took such a seemingly blasphemous image quite calmly. The Pope did not anathematize Michelangelo, the Inquisition did not drag him to the auto-da-fe. And yet why did the prophet, who showed the world the tablets with the ten commandments, have such a "devilish" decoration?
The fact is that the Vulgate, a translation of the Bible into Latin from Ancient Greek, made in the 4th century and spread throughout Europe, says that after Moses descended with the tablets from Mount Sinai, "his face became horned because God spoke to him."
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But the translators made a gross mistake. In the original Bible, they read the word "ray" as "horn" (the spellings of these words in ancient Greek are quite similar). In fact, the phrase was supposed to sound like this: "Moses did not know that his face began to shine with rays because God spoke to him."
As a result of translation errors, for a long time to this day, Moses is often depicted with horns or horn-shaped rays beating from his head (as, for example, on the sculpture at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow). They portray even after this error was disclosed, contrary to common sense. Why? And the ancient archetype works. Horns as a symbol of the Divine figure actively in the mythology and iconography of many pagan pantheons - from ancient Egyptian to Greek and Roman.
For example, horns were an indispensable attribute of Pan - the ancient Greek god of shepherding, fertility and wildlife. Alexander the Great, who declared himself the son of Zeus-Amun, was also depicted on coins with horns. And the remnants of pagan beliefs, preserved in the subconscious, interfere to some extent with the perception of horns as belonging to a demonic, incompatible with the image of a Christian saint.
The third hand of the Virgin
Among the many different icons of the Mother of God, sometimes quite exotic ones are found. For example, "Black Madonna" by Catholics with a face of an extremely dark shade. The Orthodox are also not inferior to the heterodox in the sense of originality. So, on some Orthodox icons, the Mother of God … has three hands. And in Moscow there is even a church-chapel of the icon of the Mother of God "Three-handed".
According to legend, the Monk John of Damascus, accused of veneration of icons, was cut off by a brush. At night he prayed for a long time in front of the icon of the Mother of God, and the Intercessor heeded his requests: the next morning the monk woke up with a brush attached back. In honor of his healing, the Skin Lady attached a silver hand to the icon frame. And later, the icon painters who made a copy of this icon decided that the hand on the frame is an integral part of the Mother of God herself, and … they wrote it into the image.
This absurdity was discovered by the church authorities after quite a long time, when the cult of the "Three-handed" had already developed among the people. In order to avoid misinterpretations, so as not to seduce the flock, further copies were ordered to be removed, only with silvering the third hand of the Virgin.
However, in the 17th century, the Athos metropolitan shares a new legend with Russian icon painters: it turns out that while working on the icon, the third hand appeared on the image in a divine way, and the voice of the Lord did not allow it to be removed. Thus, permission was obtained to write three hands of the same color.
The people explained the appearance of the third hand differently. According to legend, Mary, fleeing the robbers, had to swim across the river with the baby. God sent her help by giving her one more hand, and she swam, holding Jesus with that hand and rowing with her two.
For the sake of this belief, the name of the church holiday was distorted - Prepolovene, which began to be called Prelavin, that is, the day when the Mother of God swam across the river with the baby.
It is unlikely that such an image could have taken root if the ancient archetypes that go back to the origins of the common Indo-European culture were not kept in the depths of the collective unconscious. Let us recall the images of the eight-armed Shiva and other multi-armed Hindu gods, traditional for Vedic beliefs.
To Hindus, such an abundance of limbs in a higher entity with supernatural powers does not seem at all strange. Our ancestors worshiped similar deities in ancient times, which was preserved in the people's subconscious. And therefore the people sincerely believed that Mary, connecting the Divine and the earthly worlds, as if on the border between them, may well not look exactly like an ordinary person.
Holy Pesieglavet
For the same reason, the Christian flock was not surprised by the icons of St. Christopher with the body of a man and a dog's head. According to one of the legends, he had such a head from birth, since he came from the country of cinephalians - people with dog heads.
When the future saint was baptized, he acquired a human form. According to another, rather late legend, spread in Cyprus, Christopher from birth had a beautiful appearance, which attracted women. Wishing to avoid temptations, he prayed that the Lord would give him an ugly appearance, after which he became like a dog.
The Constantinople Synaxaria (collection of the lives of the saints) indicates that the dog-headed appearance of the saint and his origin from the country of cinephals and anthropophages (cannibals) should be understood symbolically - as a state of rudeness and ferocity during his stay as a pagan.
None of the above versions explains how the saint with the head of a dog was able to exist in Christian iconography to this day (these images in Russia can be found in existing Old Believer churches). After all, the fight against such images has been waged in the church for a long time.
For example, in 1707, in response to the order of Peter I on the observance of the icon painting rules that were adopted at the Great Moscow Cathedral in 1666-1667, the Synod developed a decree prohibiting icons "contrary to nature, history and truth."
These included the images of the Saint Pesieglavets. However, the Senate did not support the decisions of the Synod, recommending not to take unambiguous measures regarding those images that have enjoyed wide popular veneration for many years.
It is known that Saint Demetrius of Rostov spoke out against the bestial images of Saint Christopher. In the middle of the 18th century, in the Rostov diocese, the clergy, including Metropolitan Arseny (Matseevich), also advocated the correction of the icons of the saint and the creation of new ones “according to the proper human head … so that instead of Christopher, the song of the chapter would not be read, but written against the great martyr Demetrius.
In some cases, the icons of St. Christopher were indeed corrected. In the painting of the Transfiguration Cathedral in Yaroslavl, the dog's head of the saint depicted on the pillar was replaced by a human one. Traces of the existence of the former image of the saint are still visible: the outline of a dog's face is visible on the right in the halo.
Where did this saint with a dog's head come from? Most often, cinephals were depicted and mentioned by the Coptic Egyptians professing Christianity. The Egyptian trace in this plot makes one recall the Egyptian god Anubis, also a psoglav, perhaps in it lies the reason for the appearance of the image of Christopher.
The legends about these two mythological characters are very similar: they both left the path of evil and turned into a champion of justice. It is possible that Coptic Christians adopted the ancient cinematographic image, adapting it to new conditions. In this case, the ancient Egyptian deity continues to live in the Christian image of Saint Christopher - the patron saint of travelers and motorists.
The list of such curious images in Christian iconography can be quite long. They arise because of an icon painter's mistake or because of an oversight of the translator - it doesn't matter. These "grins of the old gods" betray deep unconscious associations, forged in the crucible of more archaic, pagan thinking and are firmly nestled in the national memory.
Nikolay SANTALOV