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In Christian and Mediæval Times: Jesus

And again, - "O Lord Jesus, give to me gifts Such as the wise bees have, Since I have reconciled myself to thee In Christian and Mediæval Times 323 Upon the roses of thy wounds, May I bear home in my mouth and in my heart The virgin honey of thy blood."

In the church hymns of a later day we find a similar idea, as in a long hymn by Ernest Gottlieb Waltersdorf, composed in the middle of the eighteenth century, which takes the bee for its symbolical subject and from which the following lines are given in a somewhat free translation, - "The bees creep into the deep flower-cup, and what can better be for me and all poor souls than to hide in the wounds of Jesus, which at all hours stand open. "The bee builds its little cell from flower sap. My Jesus, the power of thy spirit serves me upon all occasions. I build for myself a strong dwelling from thy grace. "The bees never suffer but one king among them. Ah, Jesus, help us all to shun idols, that our hearts may be surrendered in love and truth to thee alone."

Sometimes, however, the bee was turned as a weapon against the Church, as where Marnix in the sixteenth century wrote a "A Roman Beehive" as a satire upon the Romish church.

And every one knows of Mandeville's "Fable of the Bees," written in 1729. This unfortunate book was considered so anti-Christian that it was burned in London by the hangman, though one reading it to-day would probably cast it aside as being more stupid than dangerous.

Bees appear upon the coat-of-arms of the house of Barberini, to which family Pope Urban VIII. belonged, and when he built the church Della Sapienza in Rome, he is said to have taken the form of the bee for the ground-plan. It was believed that at the death of their owner the bees left their hives in search of him, unless his demise was promptly and formally announced to them, and this belief still prevails in the western and northern countries. Moreover, it is in some places believed that the souls of people leave the world and return to it in the form of bees, — a myth with which we are already familiar in the more eastern lands.

With its heavenward-striving flight in the realms of light, the bee is a symbol of resurrection. It does not here, as in Greece and Italy, come forth from a dead body, though we are told that Christ has been compared to the sacrificial bull, and the Christians to the bees that came forth from it, - a figure evidently borrowed from classical literature. Peter of Capua called Christ "Apis ætheria," and he is elsewhere denominated, "Our honey."

Because of their faith and their good works prominent virgins were credited with the attributes of bees, and Saint Ambrose calls Saint Agnes "Apis argumentosa." This recalls the name of "Melissa" given to the priestesses of the pagan deities.

In a painting by Titian of the Virgin Mary the Christ Child is holding a bee in his hand, and the Virgin Mary has been denominated "the honey of the world."

Thomas of Cantiprat wrote a religious work in which all the Christian virtues are shown to reside in bees.

But Pater Abraham a Santa Clara in his book compares only the monastic life to the bee-hive, because the bees live as virgins; and this idea was the fundamental one in the illustrations drawn from bees by many others of the churchly fathers. The bee was very generally a symbol of the greatest purity, and the Immaculate Conception has been compared to the flower from which the bee extracted honey without violating it.

Herbert said, - "Bees work for men, and yet they never bruise Their Master's flower, but leave it, having done, As fair as ever and as fit to use; So both the flower doth stay and honey run."

In Christian and Mediæval Times 325 This reminds us of lines from the Buddhist "Dhammapada": "As the bee collects nectar and departs without injuring the flower or its color or scent, so let a sage dwell in his village."

It was because of the supposed purity of the bee that honey and wax had their significance in religious ceremonies. Church candles must needs be made of pure, unadulterated beeswax.

There is a legend that the monastery of Altenberg was founded by bees.

The pious priest Gottfried once saw bees under a bramble-bush busily forming a beautiful altar of wax to which came the beasts of the fields and bowed themselves down, and upon the spot he built a chapel, still called the bee chapel. Having done this, in a dream he saw approach a long procession of white-clad, flower-bedecked maidens. The dream was soon verified, for the bones of some of the unfortunate virgins of Saint Ursula's train were brought there, and from the little chapel grew the great and celebrated monastery of Altenberg.

To the confusion of certain unbelievers who impiously threw away the consecrated wafer, the devout bees upon several occasions are said to have cared for the holy relic. In his "Feminin Monarchi" Charles Butler gives us a very interesting account of some of these legends. He tells us: - "There were bees so wise and skilful as not only to descry a certain little God-a-mighty, though he came among them in likeness of a Wafercake; but also to build him an artificial chapel. If I should relate the story, all men, I know, would not believe it: notwithstanding, because every man may make some use of it, you shall have it. "A certain simple woman, having some stalls of bees, which yielded not unto her her desired profit, but did consume and die of the Murrain, made her moan to another woman more simple than herself; who gave her counsel to get a consecrated Host, and put it among them. "According to whose advice she went to the priest to receive the Host; which, when she had done, she kept it in her mouth, and being come home again, she took it out, and put it into one of her hives. Whereupon the murrain ceased, and the honey abounded. The woman, therefore, lifting up the hive at the due time to take out the honey, saw there (most strange to be seen) a chapel built by the bees, with an altar in it, the walls adorned by marvellous skill of architecture, with windows conveniently set in their places; also a door and a steeple with bells. And the Host being laid upon the altar, the bees, making a sweet noise, flew round about it. "Unto this story my author immediately addeth another, like unto it, and as likely: How certain thieves, having stolen the silver box wherein the Wafer-Gods used to lie, and finding one of them there, being loth, belike, that he should lie abroad all night, did not cast him away, but laid him under a hive; whom, the bees acknowledging, advanced to a high room in the hive; and there, instead of his silver box, made him another of the whitest wax; and when they had so done, in worship of him, at set hours, they sung most sweetly beyond all measure about it; yea, the owner took them at it at midnight, with a light and all. Wherewith the Bishop, being made acquainted, came thither with many others; and lifting up the hive, he saw there, near the top, a most fine box, wherein the host was laid, and the choirs of bees singing about it. The Bishop, therefore, taking the host, carried it with the greatest honor into the church; whither many resorting were cured of innumerable diseases." In Christian and Mediæval Times 327 These stories Butler gets from a Latin writer, and in different parts of Germany and in neighboring countries are many similar legends of bees building a waxen chapel or a monstrance over a lost or desecrated host.

When Saint Bonizella died alone, the bees came and formed in the hand of the dead virgin a beautiful waxen communion cup. It is also reported that bees entered the grave and built their combs in the bodies of two holy virgins of Verona. The bee was considered a servant of God and of the Church because of its power to produce pure wax, and the loss of a swarm of bees was a grave misfortune, portending ill to the house which it deserted.

There is a Latin adjuration to the bee which may thus be translated: "Ye are the handmaidens of the Lord; I implore you in the name of the Lord not to flee from the sons of men."