MOST people are familiar with the fact that fasting in the Christian Church has from early times been of two degrees—one in which no flesh of beast or bird or fish, not even eggs, not even milk, may be consumed, and a less severe degree in which the eating of fish is allowed. It is not at first sight clear why the eating of fish—and even of birds such as the Barnacle goose and the Sooty duck, supposed to be produced from fish—has been permitted by the Christian Church, since the flesh of fish is highly nourishing and an excellent substitute for the meat of beasts and birds, and a man fed upon it is far from suffering the effects of true "fasting." Many races and out-of-the-way people live entirely upon vegetables and a little fish, and do very well on that diet.

It has been proved by some learned inquirers that there was a special significance about the permission by the early Christians of a fish diet during so-called "fasting." Real and complete fasting, abstention from all food, for a day or even a week, was and still is practised by some Eastern peoples as a religious exercise. It is a matter of fact that an ecstatic condition of mind is favoured by complete fasting, and conditions favourable to illusions of various kinds are so produced. But the later Christians seem to have regarded the partial fasting during Lent and on certain days of the week as a sort of protest against gluttony and excess, and there is no objection to it among Protestant Churches excepting that it must not be claimed as a merit or the equivalent of "good works."

That fish were, even in the most ancient times, allowed to be eaten on fast days is curious. It is suggested by some students of this subject that the custom came from Syria, and had to do with certain pagan ceremonials and the worship of the fish-god Dagon. It is supposed that some of these early Christians managed, under the guise of a fast of the Church, to maintain an ancient pagan custom and religious rite connected with the Syrian fish-god. The Jews also eat fish on Friday evening—though in both cases the origin of the "fish-eating" was lost sight of in the early centuries of the Christian era. On the other hand, it appears that the worshippers of the fish-god (at any rate, at a remote period) were forbidden to eat fish as being sacred; hence it seems possible that the permission of a fish diet to Christians during days of fasting was given as a means of encouraging those who retained pagan superstitions to ignore and forget them. The supposition that the eating of fish on certain days is a survival of a ceremonial observance connected with fish-worship is the more probable explanation of the custom.

The worship of fish or of a fish-god is one of the outcomes of the old Nature-worship—the cult of Cybele and Rhea, who in the Greek Islands became the great mother Aphrodite born of the sea, and in Syria Ashtaroth (Astarte). She appears also as Atargatis, the Syrian fish-goddess born from a fish's egg, and worshipped at Hierapolis; her worshippers must not eat fish. Dagon, the fish-god of the Philistines, belongs to the same group of mythologic inventions. He was half-fish and half-human, like a merman, and is, in spite of this strange personality identified with the Greek Adonis! The cult of the fish-god was widely spread in ancient Greece, even in Byzantine times, and many Christian converts were devotees of the fish worship. I have on my table a photograph of a life-sized fish modelled in gold which was dug up in 1883 from the shores of a lake near the coasts of the Black Sea. It was at one time supposed to be of mediaeval workmanship, but is now shown to be of ancient Greek workmanship (450 B.C.), and was probably a votive offering connected with the worship of the fish-god.

Then, again, in the ancient Indian story of the Deluge we read of Manu (who is the Noah of that variety of the ancient legend) finding a remarkable young fish in a stream where he is bathing. The young fish (which is really the god Vishnu in disguise) can talk, and requests Manu to take care of it, and promises him if he does so to reveal to him when the deluge is coming on. Manu takes the fish home and rears it. He then is told by the fish to prepare an ark, and place on board useful animals and seeds and then to embark on it with his family. The ark floats away in the flood, guided by the sagacious fish, which seizes a rope and, swimming in front of the ark, tows it to a mountain in Armenia (Ararat!), where the vessel rests whilst the flood goes down.

There was evidently a special cult of the fish in Syria and the East, which spread to Greece and Rome in very early pre-Christian times, and survives in some of the stories in the "Arabian Nights" about human beings being turned into fish. It is not surprising that this cult should have lodged itself by obscure means in the practices of the early Church.

The most remarkable outcome of this is the recognition of the fish as the symbol of Christ. The letters of the Greek name for fish ??T?S (ichthus) can be interpreted as an acrostic, the component letters of the word taken in order being the first letters of the words ??s??? ???st?? Te?? ????, S?t?? (Jesous Christos Theou Uios Soter), which are in English "Jesus Christ Son of God, Saviour." This coincidence enabled the pagan worshippers of the fish-god to make their symbol or "totem" (using that word in a broad sense) the symbol of the Christian religion. Whether the use of the fish and of the letters of the Greek name for it was or was not independently started by the early Christians, its employment must have conciliated the fish-worshipping pagans, and rendered it easy to bring them into the fellowship of the Christian Church. Hence we see that a fish has more to do with Christianity than appears at first sight. It is quite possible that whilst the cult of the fish-god or fish-goddess may have involved at one period of its growth an abstention from the eating of fish or of particular species of fish as being sacred, yet the very ancient belief in "contagious magic" and the acquirement of the qualities of a man or an animal by eating his flesh, may have in the end prevailed and led to the eating of fish, the sacred symbol, on the fast days prescribed by the Church, when a special significance would be attached to such food as was sanctioned.

The evidence of the connexion of the early Christian Church with fish worship becomes convincing when once the importance of the great secret cult of the "Orpheists" and its connexion both with early Christianity and with fish worship is recognized.

It has long been known that there is a special association of the very ancient and primitive Greek cult of Orpheus, with the much later cult of Christianity. Many of the most important doctrines and practices of the widely spread secret society of the Orpheists closely resemble those of Christianity. Carvings and medals of Orpheus bringing all animals to his feet by his music were, by the earliest Christians, adopted as equally well representing Christ the Good Shepherd. But recent discoveries carry the matter much further. Orpheus is one of the names of a mythical hunter and fisherman of prehistoric times, who taught his people music, and by his magic helped them to successful catches of fish, and to the "netting" of beasts, as well as of fish. His followers adopted the fish as their "totem," or sacred animal, and they represented Orpheus (whether known by that or other names) as the warden of the fishes, a fish-god, and himself a fish—"the great fish"—and a "fisher of men." Fishes were kept in his temples and eaten solemnly (at first in the raw condition), in order to transmit to his worshippers his powers.

In Greece, where the cult of Orpheus was introduced by way of Thrace, he became mixed with, or made a substitute for, Dionysus (the wine-god), and the same legends were told about the one as the other. He and his followers are pictured as wearing a fox's skin (supposed by some to have been originally the skin of a sea-fox or shark), and the fable of the fox and the grapes, and the very ancient story of the fox fishing with his tail, belong to the Orpheus legends.

Very ancient peoples, earlier than the Greeks of classical times, habitually adopted some animal as their totem and name-god—as do many savage races to-day. Thus, the Myrmidones of Thessaly had the ant (myrmes) as their totem, the Arcadians the bear (arctos), the Pelasgi, who preceded the other tribes in Greece—the stork (pelargos). It is now suggested that the Hellenes, who succeeded the Pelasgi, and gave their name to Greece (Hellas) and to all its people, were so called from their having the fish (ellos, the mute or silent one, a common term applied to fish) as their "totem," and that they were, in fact, from the first worshippers of the fish-god Orpheus, Di-orphos, Dagon or Adonis! Other "cults" grew up among them. The whole Olympian company of gods and goddesses were fitted out by poets and priests with man-like forms, and with the speech, habits, and passions of humanity. But the old deep-rooted worship of the primeval fisherman who was typified by and identified with "the great fish"—much elaborated by its hymns and mystic ritual, its lore, and its legend—flourished and developed wonderfully in secret, wherever Greeks were found. Its priests were missionaries like the mendicant friars of later days, and it was—in pre-Christian times—the most popular cult not only in Greece and Asia Minor, but also in Southern Italy. Hence it is easy to understand that Christianity, by adopting the fish—the ??T?S—as its emblem, readily received sympathy and converts from the Orpheists, and that the solemn rite of eating the fish on appointed days was established. Hence it seems to have come about that the early Christian Church permitted the eating of fish on most (but not on all) fast days.

Some of my readers have seen the Greek word for "a fish" stamped upon Prayer Books, or possibly a fish embroidered on the hangings of the church where they go to celebrate the birth and the passion of Christ, as their ancestors have done for a thousand years. And now they will understand the origin of the association of the sacred fish with Christian ornament, derived from a lingering pagan reverence for the mysterious silvery inhabitants of deep pools, great rivers, and the sea. It is to such survivals of the now dim rituals and celebrations of ancient days that we owe the joyful holly and the mystic mistletoe, still happily preserved in our festivities at Christmas and New Year.

The use of fish as a regular article of diet is very widely spread. Fresh fish is considered by medical men to be more easily digested than the flesh of beasts or birds, and a healthy substitute for the latter. Almost everywhere where fish are eaten, the practice of drying, and often of salting, fish, so as to store them for consumption after an abundant "catch," has grown up, and with it a great liking for the flavours produced by the special chemical changes in the fish arising from salting and drying. Ordinary putrefaction produces very powerful poisons in the flesh of fish. They are known as "ptomaines," and are produced in the flesh of fish more readily that in that of other animals. But the process of drying in the sun or of salting and smoking the fish averts the formation of these poisons. It seems, however, that a diet of dried fish is responsible for a certain kind of poisoning in man, which renders him liable to the attack of the terrible bacillus of leprosy. The leprosy bacillus must get into the body by an abrasion or crack in the skin, through contact with a person already infected. It is known that the lack of fresh vegetable and animal food produces the ulcerated unhealthy condition called "scurvy," and a "scorbutic" state of the body seems to be favourable to the establishment in it of the leprosy bacillus. The substitution of fresh meat and vegetables as a diet in place of dried fish and salted meat has apparently been one of the chief causes of the disappearance not only of "scurvy" but of leprosy from Europe. Leprosy is rapidly becoming extinct in Norway. It still survives in a few localities, and is common in several uncivilized communities in remote regions, such as parts of Africa, India, China, and the Pacific Islands. In an earlier chapter, p. 292, I have referred to the disease known as "scurvy," which has become so uncommon now as to have escaped thorough investigation by modern pathologists.

A few marine fish are known which are highly poisonous to any and every man, even when cooked and eaten in a perfectly fresh condition, and there are many individuals who suffer from the "idiosyncrasy," as it is called, of liability to be dangerously poisoned not only by the peculiar and rare fish which are poisonous to every one, but by any and every fish they may eat, or by two or three common kinds only. Thus, some persons are poisoned if they eat lobster or crab, or oysters or mussels, but can tolerate ordinary fish. Others are poisoned, without fail, by mackerel and by grey mullet, but not by sole or salmon. The symptoms resemble those produced in ordinary persons by the "ptomaines" of putrid fish, and seem to be due to the presence even in fresh fish of a kind of ptomaine which some persons cannot destroy by digestion, whilst most persons can do so. It is literally true that "What is one man's meat is another man's poison."

The use as a "relish" of the little fish, the anchovy—allied to the sprat and the herring—preserved in salt liquor in a partially decomposed state, but not undergoing the ordinary chemical change excited by the bacteria of putrescence, is remarkable and very widely spread. Anchovy sauce is made by mashing up such chemically decomposed anchovies, and is one of the very greatest and most approved of all sauces. The anchovy is a Mediterranean fish; it is taken in small numbers in sprat-nets in the English Channel and in the Dutch Zuyder Zee. So-called "Norwegian anchovies" are not anchovies, but are small sprats. When taken fresh and cooked and eaten, the anchovy has a very bitter, unpleasant flavour, which can be washed out of it by splitting the fresh fish and letting it lie in salt and water. It was this practice of washing out the bitterness which led the Mediterranean fisher-folk to discover that if left for some time in moderately strong brine the anchovy develops a wonderfully appetizing flavour, and becomes dark red in colour, whilst the liquid also becomes red. I believe that, although it would be easy to do so, it has not been ascertained whether the red colour is due to a direct action of the salt upon the blood-pigment of the fish—as is the red colour of salt beef—or whether it is due to a special red-colour-making bacterium, as is the case with salted dried cod, which is sometimes rendered unsaleable by this red growth. However that may be, the red colour of the preserved anchovy is well known, and is produced by dealers by means of artificial pigments, if not already naturally present in the salted fish as they come to market. No one would guess on tasting a really fresh bitter anchovy that it could develop the fine flavour which it does when soaked in brine to get rid of its bitterness.

Another little fish, the Bummaloh, or "Bombay duck" (Harpodon), is taken in large quantities off the West Coast of India, and is dried and used for the peculiar flavour thus developed, which is quite different from that of the anchovy. It is a deep-water fish, and is phosphorescent. The liking for the flavours developed in these fishes by various bacteria when specially treated, is similar to that which necessity and custom has developed in our attitude to cheese. Fresh cheese is difficult to obtain. Habit has ended in our preferring stale, decomposed cheese, which has developed a whole series of flavours by the action on it of special bacteria and moulds. The Roman soldiers of the first century used a small salted fish (probably enough the anchovy) to eat with their rations of bread, and such fish were usually sold with bread. Probably the small "fishes" which, together with a dozen loaves of bread, are stated to have been used in the miraculous feeding of the multitude by Christ, were salted anchovies.

Dealers in Norwegian preserved fish not only falsely call small sprats by the name "Anchovy" in order to sell them, but they have recently prepared sprats in the manner invented by French fish-curers for the preparation of the young Pilchard. The French name for young Pilchard is "Sardines," and their Italian name even in Sir Thomas Browne's time (1646) was "Sardinos." The natural fine quality of the sardine and the skilful "tinning" and flavouring of it by the French "curers" of Concarneau in Brittany, have made it celebrated throughout the world as a delicacy. The dealers in Norway sprats—for the purpose of passing off on the public a cheap, inferior kind of fish as something much better—have recently stolen the French curers' name of "Sardine," and coolly call their sprats "Sardines." The sprats thus cured are soft and inferior in quality to the true sardines, which are a less abundant and therefore more costly species of fish. The fraudulent use in this way of the name "Sardine" has been condemned by the law courts in London, but the punishment for such fraud is so small and the profit to the fraudulent dealers is so great that our French friends have to submit to the iniquity.