THE RELIGIOUS USE OF RINGS
T
HE adornment of
rings with religious emblems, and their use as insignia of office for
the higher ecclesiastics and for the priests of the ancient ethnic
religions will be considered in the present chapter. Of special
interest are the rings used by Roman Catholic popes, cardinals and
bishops, the usage in this direction having varied considerably in the
different periods. With regard to the engravings on many ancient rings
it may often be difficult, however, to know whether a religious symbol,
or the conventional figure of a divinity, has been used in a strictly
religious sense, or merely for ornamental purposes.
The
employment of rings as religious symbols is often bound up with their
use in some other way, as in the case of many seal rings for instance.
This was undoubtedly the case with a large number of the ancient rings
noted in earlier chapters. Here we have endeavored to group together
those which were more exclusively religious in their character, the
ecclesiastical rings, especially those worn by Roman Catholic popes,
cardinals and bishops, constituting of course a large part of these. A
very few examples will serve as brief illustrations of the religious
use of rings in pagan times.
There
is in the Louvre, among the Egyptian antiquities, a gold ring engraved
with figures of two horses. The symbol of the Sun-God which it bears is
believed to signify the gratitude of Rameses II—to whom this
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