Cecil,
I enjoyed reading your remarks on the origins of the species of halos. Although you give a plethora of evidence as to how it appears in Greek and Roman literature, you fail to mention ‘why’; i.e. why would people depict halos around the heads of saints.
I believe the answer is simpler than most people assume, and a biological rather than supernatural one. It all comes down to humans belonging to the biological Order, Mammalia; i.e. mammals. Mammals unique feature, amongst others, is the mammary gland, or breast. The areolae of the breast is usually darker than the remainder of the breast tissue and a newborn babe instinctively hunts for the centre of this mammarian halo, the nipple. Imprinted from foetal life, a newborn’s hunt is first for nutritional salvation. In seeking the halo, it hunts for its dark centre, the nipple. Later in life, one seeks instinctively for spiritual salvation, and in doing so, we hunt for the halo and find the nipple; the milk of love or wisdom.
What piques my mind is ‘if aliens lacked breasts, would their saints have halos?’
Regards,
JME
