I have said that the theory that the disengaged soul departs to heaven in the form of or by aid of a bird is historically very old. Probably, indeed, it is of prehistoric antiquity, for various savage peoples have arrived at the same doctrine, based on an obvious philosophy. For example: Powers[19] tells us that the Keltas of southern California believe that when one of the tribe dies a little bird flies away with his soul. “If he was a bad Indian a hawk will catch the bird and eat it up, body, feathers and all; but if he was a good Indian the soul-bird will reach the spirit-land.”
In Christian iconography the eagle is the emblem of the evangelist St. John, an assignment originating, it is said, in Jerome’s interpretation of the amazing visions of the four “beasts” as recorded in _Ezekiel_ i:5, and somewhat less fantastically in _Revelations_ iv:7. Wherever in sculpture, painting, or stained glass St. John appears he may be recognized by his eagle; and sometimes the bird is rather more conspicuous than the saint, as when it is bearing him aloft on its back, both gazing, open-eyed and resolute, at the sun, as the eagle is fabled to be able to do. This association also accounts for the practice of carving the support of the reading-desk in both Catholic and Anglican churches in the form of an eagle with outstretched wings. At the beginning, we are told, figures of all four evangelists upheld the lectern; but one by one the others disappeared before the demands of artistic grace until at last John, “the beloved disciple,” alone remained, and presently he came to be represented only by his emblem. “Medieval writers,” remarks B. L. Gales, in an article in _The National Review_ (1808), “delight in all sorts of wild and wonderful tales about his,” that is, the eagle’s “renewing his youth by gazing at the sun or plunging into a clear stream, and allegorize at length on the Waters of Baptism and the true Sun—Jesus Christ.” This, of course, is simply a comparatively modern illustration of the very ancient myth that when the sun set in the western ocean, yet arose bright and hot next morning, it had rejuvenated itself by its bath as it passed from west to east underneath the world.