The Dog in Universal Cultural Denotations and Biblical Connotations

Markova Natalia Mikhailovna PhD in Philosophy Associate professor, Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Vladmir State University named after Alexander and Nikolay Stoletovs 600000, Russia, Vladimirskaya oblast', g. Vladimir, ul. Gor'kogo, 87 natmarkova@list.ru Other publications by this author

The word "dog", which is familiar to us, has a fairly large number of equivalents in the Russian language and in other linguistic cultures of the world, being fixed as the designation of a certain animal in domestic texts since 1475, for which the Old Slavic word "dog" was previously used. Biologists have not yet agreed whether to consider a dog, like K. Linnaeus, a separate species (Canis familiaris) or, according to another point of view, a subspecies of the wolf (Canis lupus familiaris), which about 40,000 years ago, one of the first in history, was domesticated by man and became the source of many mythological, religious or artistic images and metaphors. The word "dog", in addition to naming a specific living being, can today denote (have denotations) completely different phenomena of reality from the names of rivers, films, magazines, stories or paintings to the well-known symbol @. Our research focuses on the special connotations of this word, formed in the history of Russian culture, inextricably linked with both the Christian and, more broadly, the biblical context, as well as with the collective memory of pre-Christian folk traditions.

The attitude towards animals in the Biblical tradition.

The Bible, as you know, states: "And God created both heaven and earth, and all that is on it" (Gen. 1). According to this teaching, all beings created by God, on the one hand, are equally equal before Him, but, on the other hand, man, created in the image and likeness of God, by virtue of his characteristics, It is located above the animal world. God created man to rule "over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the reptiles that creep on the earth" (Gen. 1:26). Man's power over animals was manifested in the God-given right to Abraham to name animals: "The Lord God formed out of the earth all the animals of the field and all the birds of the sky, and brought them to man to see what he would call them, and that as man would call every living soul, so would be its name." (Gen. 2, 19). The superiority of man over animals is also manifested in the fact that man, although He is a beloved creation of God, was nevertheless created naked, defenseless and unarmed by Him: "He has neither horns for protection, nor sharp claws, nor hooves, nor teeth, nor any sting, naturally equipped with deadly poison, which many animals possess to protect themselves from offending, and his body is not covered with a hairy shell, although he who was put in charge of others should have been protected by nature with his own weapons, so that for his own safety he would not need the help of others" ^{[8, p. 93]}. Being the slowest of all fleet-footed, the shortest of all tall, the most defenseless of all creatures with natural weapons, man, in the opinion of St. Nicholas, is the most Gregory of Nyssa, was created by God as such precisely in order to strive to have power over animals. This kind of "inferiority" of man forced him to subjugate animals, since slowness contributed to the reining in of the horse, nakedness – the need to raise sheep, need – the use of pack animals for transporting provisions, and the need for protection – to accept the help of dogs, which became for man like an "animated sword" ^{[8, p. 95]}.

According to the biblical legend, such an initial domination of man over animals existed as long as he followed the commandments of God, however, after the fall of Adam and Eve, man's power over animals weakened. As Saint Macarius the Great noted: "When Adam fell and died for God, the Creator regretted him. Angels, all powers, heaven, earth, all creatures mourned his death and fall. For the creatures saw that the one given to them as king became a slave to the evil evil darkness" ^{[10, p. 154]}. After Adam's expulsion from paradise, the beasts refused to obey him, but God did not allow them to oppose man and forced them to obey him, a perishable being, since the earthly creature, according to God's providence, was created to help man regain spirituality, incorruptibility and immortality. Thus, a small part of the animals called "domestic" remained subordinate to man, while most of the other animals went wild and lost "contact with man, their former master" ^{[5, p. 64]}.

It was Adam's fall that probably provoked the division of animals into predatory and non-predatory, wild and domestic. However, the prophecy of Isaiah still says that in the coming Kingdom this situation will change and again there will be no division into predatory and non-monstrous animals: "Then the wolf will live with the lamb, and the leopard will lie with the kid; and the calf, and the young lion, and the ox will be together, and a little child will lead them" (Isaiah 11). The confrontation between animals and their enmity with man will end: "And the baby will play over the hole of the asp, and the child will stretch out his hand to the nest of the snake" (Is. 11).

The relationship to the dog in the early Christian tradition: between "pure" and "unclean" nature.

About 180 words are used to refer to animals in the Old Testament, and about 50 in the New Testament, while one of the most ambiguous images of them in the Bible is a dog. According to a tradition borrowed by Christians from the Jews, the dog belonged to the category of unclean animals. The division of animals into pure and unclean appears in the Old Testament as a custom, and after the flood as a law. According to the Holy Scriptures, as a result of the flood, the earth became impoverished, which legalized the consumption of animals, but only pure ones, that is, "not bloodthirsty, but eating plant food" ^{[17, p. 275]}. Thus, the main criterion for the purity of animals was their nutrition, on which the possibility of eating them depended. So, in particular, ruminant artiodactyls fell under the category of pure mammals. In accordance with this, both the cat and the dog, according to the biblical definition, were unclean animals. However, this status in the Orthodox household tradition was preserved only for the dog, which may have been due to the fact that usually eating garbage, i.e. "unclean" food, it was this animal that was involved in the world of the "unclean". In the New Testament, the Old Testament norms of purity and impurity lose their relevance, since moral norms and the concept of sin (moral filth, impurity) come to the fore.

St. Patriarch Photios gives his version of the division of animals into pure and unclean, noting that such a division did not exist at the beginning of the universe. This kind of division was a necessary measure, since the Egyptians, in whose "service" the Jews were, traditionally worshipped animals, paying them "divine honors." Moses, in order to prevent the spread of zoomorphic beliefs to the Jews, called these animals unclean "not because uncleanness was inherent in them from creation, in any case, or unclean was in their nature, but because the Egyptian tribe used them not purely, but very badly and impiously" ^{[19, p. 81]}. In other words, the division of animals into pure and unclean had not ontological, but historical reasons, rooted not in the originally created nature of the animals themselves, but in the human nature involved in them, "distorted and sick with sin" ^[25].

Hieromonk Seraphim (Paramanov), pointing to the opposite attitude towards dogs among the ancient Egyptians and Jews, notes that the Old Testament was formed in a certain religious and ethical environment, and therefore the content of the sources can have a transformative, allegorical and symbolic meaning. The concept of "unclean" does not always have a uniquely negative connotation, like, for example, an elephant, which, according to the Old Testament tradition, referred to unclean animals, however, at the same time, jewelry made of "elephant weights" ^[13], that is, tusks and bones, were actively used and considered the most expensive jewelry of that era epochs.

Being an unclean animal, the dog, whose fate is that, along with "sorcerers and harlots, and murderers, and idolaters" ^{[4, p. 117]} ... will be expelled from paradise, nevertheless, often in the Holy Scriptures acts as an instrument of God to punish sinners, apostates and idolaters.

The ambivalence of the dog image in biblical stories.

In the Bible, the words "dog" and "dog" occur at least 25 times ^[13] and usually in a negative context. This is due, according to Hieromonk Seraphim (Paramonov), primarily to the fact that the image of a dog on the pages of the Bible has a metaphorical meaning. So, in particular, in the phrase "Beware of dogs!" by the Apostle Paul, dogs mean false apostles-heretics who "creep into Christian communities and seduce people from the true path of faith" ^[25]. In the culture of the Ancient East, the image of a dog personified destitution, poverty, and suffering. The tradition of shamefully not burying the bodies of enemies, which made them food for dogs, who, unlike other domestic animals, usually lived on the streets and garbage dumps, eating garbage, reinforced the widespread idea that the "uncleanness" of such food was transmitted to the image of the dog itself.

The ambiguity of the dog's image is also manifested in the differences between the interpretations of some biblical stories or passages. So, in particular, the words "do not give holy things to dogs" (Mt. 7:6), meaning, according to many theologians, the prohibition to move holy things to an environment alien to them, is interpreted by Hieromonk Seraphim (Paramanov), along with the phrase "do not throw pearls in front of pigs" (Mt. 7:6), as a prohibition to commit senseless and stupid acts that humiliate inviolable "shrines". The mention of dogs and pigs in one statement prompts some authors ^{[20, pp. 1108-1109]} to conclude that the dog is unclean, along with the pig. A number of theologians in this passage contrast dogs and pigs with brothers, warning people against taking false care of dogs and pigs, unlike those who can be considered a brother. John Chrysostom, according to some interpretations, dogs in this passage are understood as pagans, and pigs as heretics. At the same time, the authors of the "Explanatory Bible" consider the two parts of this verse separately, noting that the first part talks about dogs that "do not rage, but can eat sacred meat" ^{[23, p. 190]}, and the second – about pigs, who, on the contrary, rage and "they tear apart the giver" ^{[23, p. 190]}.

The well-known biblical parable of Lazarus can also be interpreted in two ways by different authors, according to which "there was also a certain beggar named Lazarus, who lay at his gate in scabs and wanted to be fed with crumbs falling from the rich man's table, and the dogs, coming, licked his scabs" (Luke 16). A number of theologians, in confirmation of the uncleanness of the dog's image, interpret the behavior of this animal as an anticipation of Lazarus' death, since it was the dogs who licked scabs, that is, purulent wounds, thereby confirming the uncleanness of dogs eating such food.

On the other hand, T.M. Goricheva offers a different interpretation of this parable, considering such behavior of dogs as a manifestation of sympathy for Lazarus, acting in this context as a symbolic image of human suffering. According to this author, only dogs expressed pity for Lazarus and tried to ease his torment, preparing him for the transition to another world: "Only dogs did not disdain his sores and stench and showed true, active love for the suffering" ^{[7, p. 167]}.

T.M. Goricheva, referring to Christian exegetes, believes that the parable of the Syrophenician woman feeding dogs, "but dogs also eat crumbs that fall from the table of their masters" (Matthew 15, 22-28), can be interpreted as evidence of the changing self–consciousness of Jesus Christ, of a change in his idea of his own a mission to save not only Jews, but Gentiles and all of God's creatures in general. In the phrase "it is not good to take bread and throw it to dogs" (Mk. 7:27), other researchers ^{[20, p. 1108]} see a comparison of pagans with dogs, while, however, it is the humility of the Syrophenician woman that allows her to receive help from Christ. Probably the only parable in the Bible in which the image of a dog is equally recognized by all theologians in a positive sense is the parable about the wonderful journey of the young Tobias accompanied by an Angel and a dog (Comrade, 5,17).

The ambivalence of the dog's image is also present in the Russian Orthodox tradition. On the one hand, a dog is a friend and helper of man, a creature devoted to man, a defender and a guard. Orthodox sources tell about saints living next to dogs, such as, for example, Blessed Euphrosyne Kolyupnovskaya, about whom it is said that "then her beloved cats and dogs, hearing a familiar knock and perfectly understanding it, gathered near the porch in one minute, and the old woman fed them..." ^{[22, p. 10]}. Similarly, blessed Domna Tomskaya, known for the fact that when "she almost always spent the night somewhere in the yard or right in the field, the dogs surrounded her with joyful barking" ^{[3, p. 202]}.

On the other hand, the image of a dog was often used as an expletive or insult. As V.I. Zelvis notes, "for many centuries the dog in Russia has been a symbol of foolishness and alienation" ^{[12, p. 137]}. The image of a dog in a negative connotation was used in both religious and domestic spheres. A comparison with a dog meant an indication of the pitiful position of a person, with a dead dog – a creature of no value. Money for the sale of a dog was also considered unclean, according to the Old Testament, they should not be brought to the house of the Lord (Deut. 23:18). "Dogs" in Orthodoxy were called Gentiles or apostates from the faith who committed the grave sin of falling away from the church. The Russian Orthodox Church called for a spiritual struggle against sectarians and false teachers, based on the words of the Apostle Paul: "Beware of dogs, beware of evil doers" ^{[21, p. 105]}. The tradition of prohibiting the presence of a dog in the temple has reached the present time due to the widespread belief that by its presence in a holy place it defiles the House of the Lord. At the same time, the Holy Scriptures do not say anything about the prohibition of the presence of a dog in the temple, just as there is no mention of a dog as an unclean animal, however, according to Rule 88 of the Sixth Ecumenical Council (Trulsky), no animal is allowed to be in the temple: "Let no one enter any animal into the sacred temple..." ^{[18, p. 582]}. The essence of this rule is explained by the desire to protect the holy temple from being used for other purposes ^{[18, p. 582]}. At the same time, the same rule allows animals to be found within the temple in case of bad weather or the presence of a threat to human life, although this rule had to be deviated from, since the presence of mice in temples forced the clergy to resort to the help of cats to catch them. Dogs were usually used to guard the territory, so they were always outside the temple. Probably, this is where the tradition of allowing a cat to be in the temple and in the house came from, which was combined with the prohibition of the presence of both in the temple and in the house of a dog, since it was believed that just as "a dog defiles the church, it defiles the house" ^[9].

The dog and the phenomenon of "dog-headedness"

The ambivalence of animal images is clearly evident in Christian art. The animals found in medieval bestiaries represent, in addition to a living organism, also a symbol, a sign, and the ambiguity of these signs reaches inconsistency, that is, "almost every beast can denote both virtue and vice; both heavenly and infernal" ^{[16, p. 20]}. At the same time, the beast in the bestiary does not exist as a single thing, but represents a complex of properties to which certain values are attributed. So, in particular, in medieval bestiaries, there is also a contradiction in the image of a dog, which on the one hand symbolizes devotion, loyalty, sacrifice, and on the other hand can mean aggression, anger, uncleanness.

As I.V. Kovrigina points out, in the Aberdeen Bestiary, preachers are in some sense equated with dogs, since "they destroy the traps of the devil with warnings and righteous ways so that he does not capture and take away the treasure of the Lord – the souls of Christians. Just as the tongue of a dog, licking wounds, heals them, the wounds of sinners, being exposed in confession, are cleansed by the instructions of a priest. As the tongue of a dog heals a person's internal wounds, so the secrets of his heart are often cleansed by the deeds and speeches of the teachers of the Church" ^{[14, p. 280]}. Despite the fact that the dog is smarter and more loyal than other animals, is completely attached to its owner and is ready to die for him, nevertheless, as Rabanus Moor notes in his work On the Universe, the dog also has the opposite meaning, "for it means either the devil, or Jews, or pagans. That is why the Prophet prays to the Lord: "Deliver my soul from the sword and my lonely dog from the hand" ^{[14, p. 281]}.

For Christian iconography, it is quite common to depict demons, devils, sinners with a dog's head. In the Miniature from the Apocalypse of the XVII century. there is even an image of hell with the head of a dog. The dog's head was used to symbolically mark the "own"/ "alien" dichotomy, since dogheads in iconography, as a rule, depicted enemies: Roman legionaries, in the form of dog-headed monsters ^{[2, p. 101]}; torturer warriors; heretics and Jews: "... heretic Arians will rise with "snake-like faces"and worms will come out of their mouths; "Jews"-Jews will look like the faces of animals: "their tongues are out of their mouths, like a rabid dog, their legs are twisted by them, they are clothed in donkey skins" ^{[1, p. 197]}.

At the same time, the image of a dog was used in Orthodox iconography to depict one of the most mysterious saints, the Great Martyr Christopher, who was depicted before the XVIII century. "with the head of the dog." Here we are again faced with the ambiguity of the image of a dog, in this case representing the phenomenon of "dog-headedness". It should be noted that the dog-headed image of St. Christopher, dressed in military armor, as E.N. Maksimov points out, is unique to the Greek Orthodox Church, "symbolizing the loyalty and devotion of St. Christopher as a warrior defending the Christian faith" ^{[15, p. 77]}. According to one version, according to the Papebrokh manuscript, Christopher was kinocephalic in origin, came from the country of dogheads, whose inhabitants had a zooanthropomorphic appearance: a dog's head and a human body. According to the Acts of the Apostle Bartholomew, a Pseglavian named Reprobus, who lived in the country of cannibals, was baptized by the Apostle Bartholomew and received a Christian name. The bestial image of St. Christopher, according to M. M. Shakhnovich, is symbolic, indicating "the ferocity and bestial nature of the pagan, pacified as a result of baptism" ^{[26, p.103]}. According to another version, indicating an initially anthropomorphic appearance, Saint Christopher, living in a hermit, himself turned to God with a request to disfigure his appearance in order not to succumb to the temptations of the villagers, who were seduced by his beauty. Responding to Christopher's requests, God "sent down to him a dog's head" ^{[15, p. 78]}. Another version says that the dog's head was used to give the appearance of a Reprev (another name that St. Christopher wore before baptism) an intimidating appearance. The monks, who first mentioned Reprev as a foreigner captured, used dog-headedness to emphasize the connotation of his image with extreme ferocity and inhumanity. Thus, as sometimes happens in culture, there is a pejorative identification of the image of a foreigner with the image of "bestial inhumanity". According to M. M. Shakhnovich, the animal-like image of St. Christopher was used to maintain eschatological expectations.

The image of a dog in the popular imagination.

In everyday speech, there is also an ambiguity in the image of a dog, which can be explained by the juxtaposition of qualities and symbols inherent in it. Barbara Hanna, having studied world mythology, identified the following dichotomy of dog symbolism: "1. a dog as a symbol of a faithful friend, and its opposite is a traitor; 2. a dog as a symbol of a guide and a hunter; 3. a dog as a symbol of a watchdog, and its opposite is a thief; 4. a dog as a symbol of a healer, against a dog – eater of corpses" ^{[24, p. 59]}. Thus, it becomes clear that the ambiguity, and sometimes the inconsistency of the dog's image, which is present in Russian folk beliefs and everyday speech. On the one hand, the dog was often the object of curses and ridicule (for example, "the dog is stooping!", "the dog is smelly!") or identified with something negative (for example, "cold dog", "tired as a dog"). In addition, folk proverbs and sayings also often refer to the image of a dog. For example: "Whatever you do with a dog, even if you scratch mine, even if you cut off the tail, it will remain a dog"; "Dog's death to a dog"; "A cat's fur is clean, but its snout is filthy; a dog's snout is clean, and its hair is filthy", etc. The idea that a dog has an unclean "filthy" coat is probably due to the specific smell inherent in a dog (in the common people - the smell of a "dog"), as well as the fact that dogs like to wallow in mud to disguise themselves from predatory animals, especially if the dirt also has a sharp, unpleasant, the smell is repulsive. However, there are other explanations for this saying, so, in particular, A. Ermolov, explains this by popular belief, according to which the dog was originally created naked by God, and she received her fur from Satan. Thus, there is a popular, along with a theological explanation of the reason why a dog is not allowed into the church, unlike a cat, which has hair from God ^{[11, p. 155]}. In addition, the dog was often associated with the devil, as evidenced by the use of a number of special curses: "To hell with him!"- "The dog is with him!"; "The devil knows!" - "The dog knows him!"; "To hell with it!". The tradition of identifying a dog with dark, unclean forces, anti-Christian origin is represented in a number of folk legends, where demons, devils, the dead, werewolves or spirits of the surrounding world (mermaids, kikimores, goblins, brownies, etc.) often appeared in the form of a dog (usually a black dog). Many peoples associated a dog with a Black god ^[6], who acted as the ruler of the afterlife. The chthonic significance of the dog was manifested in the fact that the dog was considered, along with the serpent, a fiend of hell, a harbinger of fate in its habit of howling at the moon.

On the other hand, according to East Slavic mythology, the dog was presented as a guard at home, a defender from the same dark forces, able to warn a person about their approach. The dog's devotion is reflected in everyday speech: "devoted as a dog", "faithful dog", "dogs of the Lord". V.I. Zelvis explains the ambivalence of the dog image in everyday speech by a sequential chain of transformations ^{[12, p. 143]} from the concept of "holy" (divine) through "sacred" (extremely important) to "forbidden" (dangerous, unclean, obscene). At the same time, there may be a convergence of attitudes towards such diametrically opposed concepts as "holy" and "obscene", acting at this level as "scary", while prescribing the need to stay away from the bearers of these signs, their embodiments, since they, despite the opposite nature, cause the same reaction in subjects, who have experienced contact with them.

Conclusion.

In general, it can be argued that the ambiguity, and often the inconsistency of the image of a dog in Christianity has deep roots that should be seen in pre-Christian beliefs: Judaism and Slavic paganism, where the dog was perceived as an unclean animal or a creature with demonic qualities. At the same time, the dog's devotion and being near a person contributed to the fact that it appears next to Christian saints, is accepted by them, and becomes one of the favorite pets. Nevertheless, the tradition of not accepting a dog as an unclean animal still persists in everyday life, as evidenced by the practice of not allowing a dog into an Orthodox church. Numerous conversations with clergymen on the possibility of finding a dog in a temple or consecrating an apartment in which a dog lives indicate the rooting of the tradition of perceiving a dog as an unclean animal to a greater extent among clergymen than among laypeople. Moreover, the attitude towards a dog in modern society, namely the identification of a dog as a family member, the love and care with which it is usually surrounded, make some clergy see this as a violation of God's commandment – "do not make yourself an idol." According to the Orthodox doctrine, there is a hierarchy of objects of genuine love: God heads it, followed by love for his neighbor, and only in third place are dumb animals. Excessive affection and love for our lesser brothers, according to some Orthodox theologians, is capable of violating the hierarchy indicated above, creating an idol, displacing God from the human heart.