Churches and cathedrals are packed with meaning. Outside, the spire points heavenwards; carvings around the entrance announce the holiness of the space inside; the aisle that draws you to the altar is the gangway of a ship carrying worshippers to God; the altar, the holy heart of the building, is contained in a separated and sacred space; all around, numbers, colours, the animals and plants in the stonework, and the scenes in the stained glass, point to aspects of Christian teachings about God. In a number of senses, and to different degrees, churches were built to be read.
A symbol is something that represents or stands for something else. Three characteristics of symbols make them as important today as they have ever been. First, symbols can express concepts that language alone cannot. That is especially the case for mystical concepts, which, almost by definition, we can only approach and not completely grasp. But we can understand, and accept, a symbol of those concepts. In fact, given that a symbol may be trying to express the inexpressible, it could be as perfect an understanding of the concept as we can ever achieve. Secondly, symbols can help to bridge gaps where language is simply too trouble-making. The Eastern and Western Churches became divided over the precise relationship between the Persons of the Trinity, which led to Creeds with very subtly different wording being adopted by each. In the world of symbols, no such problem, and no such division, need exist. Christians can all agree that a triangle expresses the Trinity. Thirdly, a symbol may have the power to touch us at a depth that a wordy exposition does not. We will see that this is an old language, some of it rooted in practices and ideas that predate Christianity. It can connect with us in a way we can barely understand.
The world of symbols is deep and rich and varied. Although their context may point to one interpretation over another, a single symbol can have multiple, even contradictory, meanings. These meanings can inform and colour one another. For example, the lion is a biblical symbol of evil, devouring and ravaging. It is also a symbol of Jesus, regal and powerful. The former symbol can inform the latter, for example, with Jesus as a king who has ruthlessly devoured evil.
It is often said that we could, or even should, do without churches. God is in the fields and in the woods, in the earth and in the wind, and is not contained within four walls. Many people feel closer to God on a walk in the park than in a building on a Sunday morning. This view is held not only by non-churchgoers. Early Christians often met to worship together at one another’s homes. The rise of house-churches over the last few years shows the need felt by some Christians to worship together outside a traditional church environment. If you do not believe in God, then church buildings can look like trying to win the argument with pomp and grandeur; if you do, they can still look that way, as if an established Church is trying to assert its monopoly over truth.
But the men and women who made and decorated these churches will for the most part have done so with a purer purpose. They were built to be Houses of God and are expressions of love and reverence. They are emblematic of Heaven on earth, and so of all that we could hope for in a place. And while they can of course be used for pers- onal meditation, they are places of communal worship, of coming together. They are also — usually — very beautiful.
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But their spiritual power is their essence. Without it, they are turned into empty barns. Admiring a church for its beauty or history alone is like admiring a Monet for its frame.
At the entrance to some English churchyards stands a lychgate, a small shelter over the entrance gate, often covering a central stone platform and perhaps seats on either side. The name comes from lic, an Old English word for corpse: its purpose was to act as a shelter for coffins and pallbearers before they came into the church for a funeral. The stone platform is the resting place for the coffin, the seats for the pallbearers. The priest presiding over the funeral would come out of the church to meet the coffin (and receive the legal certificate permitting burial) at the entrance of the churchyard, before conducting it into the church.
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The word gargoyle comes from the Latin gurgulio, meaning throat, a root shared with the word “gargle”. In the days before pipe drainage, rainwater was thrown clear of the church through a projecting spout. These spouts could be decorated, and so came to be carved as the throats of monstrous beings, spewing the rainwater safely away. From these beginnings, any projections from the churches could be carved in a fantastic shape, or gargoyles could be installed for their own sake. There are symbolic interpretations of them, for example that gargoyles were intended to scare away the Devil, or that they make a symbolic contrast between the bedevilled world outside the walls of the church and the sanctuary within, but you have to be suspicious of symbolism in relation to gargoyles, since above all they gave opportunity for expression by local carvers, as their often fabulous work — terrifying, comic, bawdy, macabre and rarely very “holy” — attests.
Candles have any number of symbolic meanings. They can represent the light of life itself; hope, like a single light flickering in the blackness; a person or message that illuminates the world around them; the easy passing of goodness from one to another; burning love, even of a life that consumes itself with love; alertness and readiness, like the bridesmaids in Jesus’s parable who kept their lamps lit to welcome the bridegroom; the fragility of life, and the ease with which it can be snuffed out; of standing up for what is right and resisting wrong.
A paschal candle is single tall, thick candle that is lit on Easter Day and burns each Sunday through the Easter season. It stands as a symbol of the Resurrection of Jesus (the light of hope). In some church services on Easter Day, candles held by the whole congregation are lit from the paschal candle, the candlelight sweeping through the church from that single source, in representation of the spread of the light of Christ. The paschal candle is often placed by the font and lit during baptisms. Its flame is used to light a candle that is presented to the newly baptised person.
Placed near the division between the chancel and the nave of a church is the lectern, from which lessons are read during services. The lectern is usually in the shape of an eagle, with the Bible resting on its outspread wings, although there are also instances of its being in the shape of a pelican. The eagle was thought to be able to look unflinchingly into the heart of the sun; in the same way, the words from the Bible are an unflinching revelation of God.
St Matthew, St Mark, St Luke, and St John, writers of the four Gospels, are known as the Four Evangelists. Their symbols are, respectively, a man (or angel), a lion (often with wings), a bull or ox (likewise), and an eagle. These four symbols are almost always found grouped together, for example at the four points of a cross, or in series on a panel.
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There is a colourful menagerie of animals in church art — almost every creature you can think of is imbued with meaning. Dogs are a symbol of faithfulness and regularly appear in both religious and secular art. In churches they are common on tomb monuments, in honour of the person’s fidelity. Dominican friars are sometimes symbolised by a black-and-white dog, in a pun on their name (Domini canes, dogs of the Lord) and their black-and-white robes.
The rabbit and the hare are symbols of lust. This was partly through the rabbit’s proverbial capacity to breed, and partly through a Latin pun: the Latin for rabbit is cuniculus; for vagina, it is cunnus (the root of a word in the modern vernacular). A rabbit at the feet of the Virgin Mary symbolises her victory over lust.
Church artists also used the characteristics of plants to represent parts of Christian teaching. With its three large outer petals, the anemone is a symbol of the Trinity. The spots of red colour on the petals of some anemones were thought to represent drops of Jesus’s blood. Anemones are sometimes shown growing at the foot of the Cross in images of the scene, since according to legend they sprang up over Golgotha that evening. The image is probably borrowed from classical mythology, since Adonis was said to have died on a bed of anemones, which were stained red with his blood.
Like ivy, vines are a useful decorative feature, curling around stonework and the edges of pictures. But their association with the wine of the Eucharist (Holy Communion) gives them a vital symbolic purpose. When seen with wheat, grapes symbolise the wine used in the Eucharist. As an important crop in ancient Palestine, the vine is an Old Testament symbol of abundance. For example, Jacob blesses Judah by saying that the land will be so wealthy that he would tether his donkey to a vine and wash his clothes in wine. In the New Testament, the vine symbolises Jesus, who described himself thus: “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”
Alpha and Omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. They indicate the beginning and the end of all things and so symbolise God, and in particular God’s infinite and eternal nature. In the first chapter of the Book of Revelation, St John had a vision of God making this analogy himself: “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”
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Edited extracts from How to Read a Church, by Richard Taylor (Ebury, £25; offer price £20)