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T he e a r l y C hristian church used the fish very widely as a symbol, and it is found quite com monly in early Christian art. Be cause of strong persecution the early Christians found it desirable to have an effective means of recog nizing one another without attract ing the attention of others. This was accomplished by using the out line of a fish as a sign. This symbol provided recognition among Chris tians but was unintelligable to oth ers. It is believed that the fish was selected as a suitable symbol for this purpose because the letters of the Greek word for fish are the initials for: Je su s Chri st , Son of God, Savior. As the Bible itself has been so fiercely attacked, it is not surprising to find that it has even been sug gested that perhaps the early Chris tians selected the symbol of the fish because various non-Christian peo ples in those days considered fish to be sacred. This is quite ridiculous. The Christian faith is the fulfill ment of Judaism, and most of the early Christians were Jews. The Jews at this time were strict mono theists. To Christians in those days, as also today, the Old Testament is the inspired word of God, and it condemns polytheism and idolatry. Idolatrous objects were strictly for bidden, and fish were specifically mentioned in Deuteronomy 4:18. It is true that fish had a part in the religious life of nations around Palestine. In Egypt the eel was con sidered sacred. To the Syrians all fish were sacred, and for that rea son not to be eaten. The chief god of the Philistines was Dagon. In spite of the opposing opinion of some scholars, it seems that Dagon was a fish-god. The feminine counter part of Dagon was the goddess Atar- gatis, who is represented as part woman and part fish. At the city of Ascalon in Pales tine there was a temple of Atargatis with a pool of sacred fish. The fish were fed every day and were eaten only by the priests of the goddess. At Hierapolis in Asia Minor there was another such temple, and the fish
in its pool were adorned with golden ornaments. In the fifth chapter of I Samuel it is recorded that the Philistines took the ark of God, after they had captured it from the Israelites, and brought it to the temple of their god Dagon. The next day they were sur prised to see that the image of Dagon had. fallen on its face before the ark of God. The idolatrous Phil istines set Dagon up again in his place, and the following morning they found him fallen again before the ark of God. This time in fall ing the idol had broken. “ And the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off upon the threshold: only the stump of Dagon was left him.” The words in italics were not in the original text and have been supplied by the trans lators. Linguists say that the word Dagon refers to a fish, with an en dearing suffix. In other words, the original text, without the words in italics, says that the head and hands of the idol were broken off and only the fishy part was left. In pictures Dagon was represented as having the head of a man, hands, and some times also feet, together with the body of a fish. People who held fish as sacred re frained from eating them, or their priests alone partook of them, appar ently as a symbolic means of draw ing closer to the deity to whom the fish were sacred. But several of the Lord’s disciples were fishermen. They earned their living catching fish, and they had no scruples about eat ing them. On two separate occasions the Lord multiplied a few prepared fish into many to feed a multitude. In recruiting the disciples who were fishermen, the Lord told them that they would become “ fishers of men.” They left their fishing to learn how to win men for the Lord. In these times of fast-growing apostasy it has been suggested that Bible-believing Christians may again utilize the sign of the fish to recog nize each other and as a “ conversa tion piece” to have more opportu nity to tell nonbelievers about the Gospel.
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