BIBLIOGRAPHY
Block, Marguerite Beck. The New Church in the New World: A
Study of Swedenborgianism in America. New York, 1932.
Evans, Jean. A History of the New Church in Southern Africa,
1909–1991, and a Tribute to the Late Reverend Obed S. D.
Mooki. Johannesburg, South Africa, 1991.
Hindmarsh, Robert. Rise and Progress of the New Jerusalem Church
in England, America, and Other Parts. London, 1861.
Robinson, I. A. A History of the New Church in Australia, 1832–
1980. Melbourne, 1980.
Williams-Hogan, Jane. A New Church in a Disenchanted World:
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ference of the New Church in Great Britain. Ann Arbor,
Mich., 1985.
Williams-Hogan, Jane. “Contemporary Swedenborgian Religious
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national CESNUR Conference, Turin, Italy, September 10–
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Williams-Hogan, Jane. “Discovering the Two Faces of Religious
Charismatic Action—Traditional and Modern: A Model.”
In Approaching Religion, part 1, edited by Tore Ahlbäck,
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JANE WILLIAMS-HOGAN (2005)
SWORDS SEE BLADES
SYMBOL AND SYMBOLISM. [This entry presents
a history of the study of symbolism: issues, theories, and ap-
proaches. For an explanation of symbols from various religious
traditions, see Iconography.]
Understanding symbolism as a particular mode of reli-
gious thought begins with some consideration of what one
means by the term. Most generally, a symbol is thought of
as something that stands for something else. However, it is
not a simple matter to identify the particular mode of “stand-
ing for” that provokes an observer to call something a sym-
bol, as opposed to any of the other terms we use to designate
figurative devices, like sign, figure, metaphor, image, receipt,
token, or allegory, to name just a few. Although different defi-
nitions have been used throughout the long history of semio-
tics, a certain consistency exists in the characteristics thought
to be specific to “symbol” (Greek sumbolon, late Latin sym-
bolum, Italian simbolo, German Symbol, French symbole).
These defining characteristics have consistently granted the
idea a special relevance to religion. While various objects
have been called symbols—including the purely arbitrary sig-
nifiers used in mathematical or scientific notation and, in the
ancient period, the tokens of identity used in diplomacy and
as markers of business agreement—a large subset of these ap-
pear in contexts that deal specifically with figuration of the
divine. In particular, a symbol, as opposed to other forms of
signification, tends to be understood as a representational
mechanism that renders transcendent realities into tangible
forms.
This article surveys the general outlines of the study of
symbolism by proceeding historically, highlighting certain
key contributions relative to the study of religion and focus-
ing attention on some of the main theoretical issues.
POINTS OF ORIGIN. Though the Romantics created the
modern apotheosis of the symbol, they did not invent the
idea. The symbol has a rich premodern history, which, while
not determinative, renders comprehensible certain habits of
thought that animate the concept’s later history. The term
originated in Greek. The neuter noun, sumbolon, is formed
from the verb sumballein (prefix sun + the verb ballein),
which can mean many things but whose least marked sense
is “to put” things “together.” In 1931, Walter Müri dis-
proved conclusively the notion that the noun is derived from
the notion of a thing “put together” with something else.
Philological considerations argue against this interpretation
and also against the idea that symbol indicated, from its in-
ception, an unspecific and general association between
things. (This sense would have required sumblêma, which is
uncommon and attested very late.) Neuter nouns in omicron
formed from other -ballein verbs consistently mark the in-
strument by which the action of the verb is completed. Conse-
quently, if the noun had actually been derived from the ver-
bal sense of “put together,” it would have yielded the sense
of a device used to put other things together, and this sugges-
tion turns out to be awkward in the face of attested ancient
usage.
The neuter noun in the classical period regularly desig-
nated one of the two halves of a deliberately broken piece of
material (a terracotta shard, for example) that were distribut-
ed to the two parties to an agreement in order to provide a
secure authentication, at some future date, of their original
arrangement. One sense of the verb sumballein stands out
clearly, given knowledge of the philological parallels, as the
best explanation of the evidence for the noun. The verb has
a well-attested sense of “to agree,” which positions the sym-
bol as a device by which agreement is completed. Symbols
seal the deal, so to speak. In the classical age, this context is
by far the most common. Symbols appear as authenticating
markers in many different fields, including in hospitality ar-
rangements, in business, and in diplomacy. Although this
background sets, at first glance, a kind of intuitively satisfy-
ing background for understanding the later history of a rep-
resentational device, on closer inspection, it is too humble
to have served as the origins for the master concept of figura-
tion that appears later. A “receipt” and a “passport” are, after
all, a far cry from a mode of representation that mediates be-
tween humans and the divine. Two other contexts need to
be considered; these will explain the ways in which a narrow
term of authentication gains a broader meaning and will
show that symbols had, even in their earliest days, certain
unique representational powers.8906 SWORDS