Anchor

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ANCHOR. While the anchor has had some currency in various cultures as a symbol relating to the sea and to virtues like constancy and hope, its religious significance became paramount only with the growth of Christianity. In fact, the anchor as we know it and as the object early Christians turned into a symbol did not appear until well into Roman times; the Greeks used an anchor that was essentially an arrangement of sandbags.

Both the appearance and the function of the anchor played a role in its development as a religious symbol. Early Christians saw in it an allegorical and disguised form of the cross. Its function became metaphorical in the New Testament in Hebrews 6:19: "We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner shrine behind the curtain where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf."

Signifying steadfastness and hope, the anchor became one of the commonest symbols in the catacombs and on early Christian jewelry and seal stones. It was also associated with other symbols, as, for example, in the anchor cross, which combined the two shapes to make one that showed the Christian's hope firmly joined to Christ.

The anchor also appeared with the letters alpha and omega to represent eternal hope, and with the fish to signify, again, hope in Christ. In combination with the dolphin, the anchor came to mean the Christian soul or the church guided by Christ. The speedy dolphin was represented with the anchor to illustrate Augustine's motto Festina lente ("Make haste slowly").

Another early, if odd, use of the symbol was to identify Clement of Rome, a church father and one of the earliest bishops of Rome. Legend relates that Clement's persecutors tied an anchor around his neck and tossed him into the sea. The prayers of his followers made the waters withdraw, revealing a small temple where his body was found. Clement was frequently portrayed with an anchor around his neck or beside him.

The anchor was popular as a symbol until the medieval period, at which time it largely disappeared. When it reappeared it was, for example, as a symbol of Nicholas of Myra, because of his patronage of sailors, and as the attribute of hope, one of the seven virtues in Renaissance art.

Other, more exotic, ideas grew up around the symbol in some forms of magic and mysticism. Evelyn Jobes (1961) describes the bottom of the anchor as a crescent moon (ark, boat, nave, vulva, yoni, or female principle), in which is placed the mast (lingam, phallus, or male principle), around which the serpent (fertility, life) entwines itself. With the crossbeam, the parts add up to the mystic number four, and the anchor thus also symbolizes the four quarters of the universe, as well as both the sun and the world's center. The entire symbol expresses the idea of androgyny and of the union that results in new life. Finally, Ad de Vries (1978) ascribes to Freud the concept of the anchor as a combination of the cross (the body of Christ rising) and the crescent (Mary), the whole representing life.

The anchor is included in almost any book of Christian symbols. An example is Signs and Symbols in Christian Art by George W. Ferguson (Oxford, 1954). More far-ranging interpretations can be found in the following: Dictionary of Mythology, Folklore and Symbols by Evelyn Jobes (Metuchen, N.J., 1961); Dictionary of Symbols and Imagery, rev. ed., by Ad de Vries (New York, 1978); and Dictionnaire des symboles by Jean Chevalier and Alain Gheerbrant (Paris, 1982).