This contradiction enters into the minutest details of lifearmorial bearings, clothes, habits at table, symbolize and accentuate the difference.
In this chapter we have the two beasts 2 which symbolize respectively Rome and the Roman provincial priesthood of the imperial cult.
Arose from the supposed resemblance of the corona to the crown of thorns, and of the other parts of the flower to the nails, or wounds, while the five sepals and five petals were taken to symbolize the ten apostles - Peter, who denied, and Judas, who betrayed, being left out of the reckoning.
Or, they symbolize the magic power of beauty, eloquence and song; hence their images are placed over the graves of beautiful women and maidens, of poets and orators (Sophocles, Isocrates).
The cherub-images, where such occur, represent to the imagination the supernatural bearers of Yahweh's throne or chariot, or the guardians of His abode; the cherub-carvings at least symbolize His presence, and communicate some degree of His sanctity.
The wheels symbolize divine omniscience and control, and the whole vision represents the coming of Yahweh to take up his abode among the exiles.
Indeed, as the history of the higher religions shows, religion tends in the end to break away from secular government with its aristocratic traditions, and to revert to the more democratic spirit of the primitive age, having by now obtained a clearer consciousness of its purpose, yet nevertheless clinging to the inveterate forms of human ritual as still adequate to symbolize the consecration of life - the quickening of the will to face life earnestly.
In time the villages dependent on a chartered city, as they grew to be towns themselves, fotight for, and in many cases won, emancipation, which they then sought to have confirmed by the king and proceeded to symbolize by setting up their own gallows in the market-place.
The first doge elected in Rialto was Angelo Particiaco, a Heraclean noble, with a strong bias towards Byzantium, and his reign was signalized by the building of the first church of San Marco, and by the translation of the saint's body from Alexandria, as though to affirm and to symbolize the creation of united Venice.
The swan and grasshopper symbolize music and song; the hawk, raven, crow and snake have reference to his functions as the god of prophecy.