20 § Some Aspects of the Symbolism of Janus
At different times in our writings, we have alluded to the symbolism of Janus. It would need a whole volume to treat this subject fully with all its complex and multiple significations, and to call attention to its links with a great number of analogous figures that are to be found in other traditions.[1] Meanwhile, it seemed of interest to bring together certain aspects of the symbolism in question, and in particular to reconsider more thoroughly than we have ever yet been able to do how it is that Janus is sometimes connected with Christ, in a way that may seem strange at first sight but which is none the less perfectly justified.
In fact, a curious document expressly representing Christ in the form of Janus was published several years ago by Charbonneau-Lassay in Regnabit, [2] and we commented on it subsequently in the same review [3] (figure II). It is a cartouche painted on a detached page of a church manuscript book, dating from the fifteenth century and found at Luchon; the painting ends the leaf for the month of January in the prefatory calender of the book. At the summit of the inner medallion is the monogram IHS surmounted by a heart; the rest of the medallion is filled with a bust of Janus Bifrons; as often, the two faces are male and female; the head is crowned, and one hand holds a sceptre and the other a key.
In reproducing this document, Charbonneau-Lassay writes: 'On Roman monuments, Janus is shown crowned as in the cartouche of Luchon, with the sceptre in the right hand, because he is king; he holds in the other hand a key which opens and closes the epochs; this is why, by extension of this idea, the Romans consecrated to him the doorways of houses and the gates to cities . . . Christ, also, like the ancient Janus, holds the royal sceptre to which he is entitled by his Heavenly Father as well as by his earthly ancestry; and his other hand holds the key to the eternal secrets, the key
Figure II
coloured by his blood which opens to lost humanity the doorway to life. Thus in the fourth of the great antiphons before Christmas, the sacred liturgy acclaims him thus: O Clavis David et Sceptrum domus Israel! ... Thou art, O Christ, long awaited, the Key of David and the Sceptre of the house of Israel. Who openest, and no man shutteth, who shuttest and no man openeth'. [4]
The most common interpretation of the two faces of Janus is that which considers them as representing respectively the past and the future. This interpretation, although very incomplete, is nevertheless exact from a certain point of view. This is why in a rather large number of figurations the two faces are those of an old man and of a young man. It must be added that such is not the case with the emblem of Luchon: we have only to look at it closely to see beyond doubt that it is a portrayal of Janus the androgyne or Janus-Jana; [5] and it is hardly necessary to call attention to the close relation of this form of Janus with certain Hermetic symbols such as the Rebis. [6]
Whenever the symbolism of Janus relates to time, it is important to remember that between the past which is no longer and the future which is not yet, the true face of Janus, that which looks at the present, is neither one nor the other of those that we can see. This third face is, in fact, invisible because the present in its temporal manifestation is but an ungraspable instant; [7] but when one rises above the conditions of this transitory and contingent manifestation, the present, on the contrary, contains all reality.
The third face of Janus, in another symbolism, that of the Hindu tradition, corresponds to the frontal eye of Shiva, which is also invisible, not being represented by any corporeal organ, and which represents the 'sense of eternity'. It is said that a glance from this third eye reduces everything to ashes, that is, it destroys all manifestation. But when succession is transmuted into simultaneity, all things remain in the eternal present, so that the apparent destruction is really a transformation in the most rigorously etymological sense of this word.
These few considerations make it easy to understand that Janus truly represents him who is not only the 'Master of the triple time' (a designation which is also applied to Shiva in the Hindu doctrine), [8] but also, and before all else, the 'Lord of Eternity'. 'Christ', as Charbonneau-Lassay wrote further in this connection, 'dominates the past and the future; coeternal with his Father, he is like his Father, the "Ancient of Days": "in the beginning was the Word", says St John. He is also the Father and the Master of the ages to come: Jesu pater futuri saeculi, the Roman Church repeats each day. [9] He Himself proclaimed Himself as the beginning and the end of all; "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end". He is "Lord of Eternity".'
It is quite evident, in fact, that the 'Master of time' cannot himself be subject to time which has its principle in him, just as, according to Aristotle, the prime mover of all things or the universal principle of movement is necessarily immobile. It is certainly the eternal Word which the Biblical texts often designate as the 'Ancient of Days', the ages or cycles of existence (this is the true and original significance of the Latin word saeculum, as well as of the Greek aion and of the Hebrew ōlam which it translates); and it may be noted that the Hindu tradition gives to the Word the title Purāna-Purusha, the significance of which is strictly equivalent.
To return to the figure which we took as starting point for these remarks, the sceptre and the key are to be seen there in the hands of Janus. Like the crown, the sceptre is the emblem of royal power; but the crown can also be considered as symbol of power and of elevation in the most general sense, in the spiritual as well as in the temporal order, and it seems to have here, unlike the sceptre, this twofold significance. The key may thus be taken as being more specifically the emblem of sacerdotal power. It must be noted that the sceptre is at the left of the figure, on the side of the male face, and the key is on the right, on the side of the female face. Now, according to the symbolism used by the Hebrew Kabbala, the right and left correspond respectively to two divine attributes: Mercy (Hesed) and Justice (Din), [10] which are manifestly appropriate for Christ, especially as
Judge of the living and the dead. The Arabs, making an analogous distinction in the divine attributes and the names that correspond to them, speak of 'Beauty' (Jamāl) and 'Majesty' (Jalāl), which makes it even more understandable that these two aspects should have been represented by a female and a male face. [11] In a word, the key and the sceptre, taking the place here of Janus's more common emblem of the two keys, serve to make even clearer one of the meanings of this emblem, which is that of a double power proceeding from a single principle: the sacerdotal power and the royal power, united according to the Judeo-Christian tradition, in the person of Melchisedech who is, as St Paul said, 'made like unto the Son of God'. [12]
We have just said that Janus commonly carries two keys. These are those of the solstitial gates, Janua Cœli and Janua Inferni, corresponding respectively to the winter and summer solstices, that is, to the two extreme points in the course of the sun in its annual cycle, for Janus, as 'Master of time', is the Janitor who opens and closes this cycle. On the other hand, he is also the god of initiation into the mysteries. Initiatio derives from in-ire, 'enter' (which is also connected with the symbolism of the gate); and, according to Cicero, the name Janus has the same root as the verb ire, to go. This root I is found, moreover, in Sanskrit with the same sense as in Latin; and in Sanskrit it has among its derivatives the word yāna, 'way', the form of which is singularly close to the very name Janus. 'I am the way', said Christ. [13] Is it possible to see here yet another connection between the two? What we are about to say would seem to justify it; and it would be a grave mistake, where symbolism is concerned, not to take into account certain verbal similitudes, the reasons for which are often very profound even though, unfortunately, they escape modern philologists who are ignorant of all that can legitimately be called 'sacred science'.
However that may be, insofar as Janus was considered as the god of initiation, his two keys, one of gold and the other of silver, were those of the 'greater mysteries' and of the 'lesser mysteries'. In other but equivalent terms, the silver key is that of the terrestrial Paradise, and the gold key that of the celestial Paradise. These same keys were one of the attributes of the sovereign pontificate to which the function of 'hierophant' was essentially attached. Like the barque, which was also a symbol of Janus, [14] they have remained among the chief emblems of the papacy; and the Gospel words concerning the 'power of the keys' are in perfect accord with the ancient traditions, all rising from the great primordial tradition. There is, in addition, a very direct relationship between the meaning we have just mentioned and that of
the gold key representing the spiritual power and the silver key the temporal power (the silver key being replaced at times by the sceptre as we have seen). [15] Dante, in fact, assigns to the Emperor and to the Pope the functions of leading humanity respectively to the 'terrestrial Paradise' and to the 'celestial Paradise'. [16]
Moreover, in virtue of a certain astronomical symbolism which seems to have been common to all the ancient peoples, there are also very close links between the two interpretations according to which the keys of Janus were either those of the solstitial gates or those of the 'greater mysteries' and of the 'lesser mysteries'. The symbolism we are alluding to is that of the zodiacal cycle, and it is not without reason that this cycle, with its two ascending and descending halves which begin respectively at the two solstices of winter and summer, should be represented on the portals of so many medieval churches. We see here another meaning of the two faces of Janus: he is the 'Master of the two ways' to which the solsticial gates give access, these two ways of the right and of the left (for there we find again that other symbolism indicated above) which the Pythagoreans represented by the letter Y, [17] and which were represented under an exoteric form by the myth of Hercules between virtue and vice. These are the same two ways which the Hindu tradition terms the 'way of the gods' (deva-yāna) and the 'way of the ancestors' ( pitri-yāna); and Ganesha, whose symbolism has numerous points of contact with that of Janus, is likewise the 'Master of the two ways' by an immediate consequence of his being 'Lord of Knowledge', which brings us back to the idea of initiation into the mysteries. Finally, like the doorways by which one has access to them, these two ways are, in a sense, those of the heavens and of the hells; [18] and it will be noted that the two sides to which they correspond, right and left, are those whereto the efect and the damned are separated in the representations of the Last Judgement which are also to be found, by a most significant coincidence, on the portals of churches but not in any other part of the edifice. [19] These representations, like those of the Zodiac, would seem to express something fundamental in
the conception of the cathedral builders who were bent on giving their works a 'pantacular' character in the true sense of the word, [20] that is, to make of each a sort of synthetic epitome of the Universe. [21]