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In later times the Bodhisattva was confused with the incarnation, in the same way as the portly figure of Pu-tai, commonly known as the laughing Buddha, has been substituted for Maitreya in Chinese iconography. In Japan the cult of the six Jizōs became very popular. They were regarded as the deities of roads and their effigies ultimately superseded the ancient phallic gods of the crossways.
"In fact all these accounts differ; and iconography adds to the confusion by representing Jude with the most various attributes. Sometimes, as at Amiens, he holds a palm, or, as at Chartres, a book. He is also seen with a cross, a square, a boat, a wand, an axe, a sword, and a spear.
Didron, in his invaluable work on Christian Iconography, gives one of these symbols, which was carved on wood in the seventeenth century, of which I annex a copy. But even in the earliest ages, when the Deity was painted or sculptured as a personage, the nimbus, or glory, which surrounded the head of the Father, was often made to assume a triangular form.
The exterior may be summed up briefly as being the most gorgeously peopled and decorated structure of its age as though it were expressly designed to show off this great throng of statues to the best possible advantage. Taken collectively, the series forms, says one writer, "the most complete and magnificent collection of mediæval iconography extant."
A kalan with a clay jar, a mortar, and a kalikut for mashing buyo were his only utensils, as if to indicate that he lived on the border of the tomb and was doing his cooking there. This was the Methuselah of the religious iconography of the Philippines; his colleague and perhaps contemporary is called in Europe Santa Claus, and is still more smiling and agreeable.
For a full account and list of all the subjects as far as is known, see Dean Stubbs' catalogue of them, abridged from Dr. Montagu James' work on the iconography of the lady-chapel, given in the "Handbook," 20th ed., pp. 127-132. In the inventory of plate, etc., "belonging to the late priory at Ely," made 31 Hen.
He is not, as a foreigner may be, interested in iconography, or religious folklore, or the comparative study of religions; and in nine cases out of ten he is rather ashamed of the signs and tokens of popular faith all around him.
Before the advent of the printing press, with its facilities for spreading knowledge broadcast, they appreciated that Tectonic Art and Iconography were the means by which they could best permanently record and teach their aspirations to the masses. Every beautiful thought found its expression in some symbol of artistic design.
And so cogent is the argument that the orthodox theologians are fain to hunt up the scanty list of beardless saints to be found in Byzantine iconography. Whatever the force of the arguments drawn from divinity, at bottom the opposition was only the simple folks' one way of seeing things the same clinging to forms, the same compound of symbolism and realism.
And then, before obtaining the money needful for the work, he at once set out the lines of a noble church as traced by the splendour of the red light. The first foundation, afterwards removed to Gandersheim. For other instances of churches laid out on lines said to have been revealed in dreams or visions, see Didron, Christian Iconography, vol. i. pp. 381, 382, 460, and Sta. Maria Maggiore, Rome.
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