APIS AETHERIA

This text and photo was originally posted on Facebook on Easter Sunday, hence the subject matter.

Did you know that the 13th century Italian theologian, Peter of Capua, referred to the risen Christ at Easter as “Apis, Aetherea” drawing upon on a long cultural tradition of religious veneration for the humble honey bee?

While the Greeks and Celts previously believed that the bee could be a messenger into the spiritual realm, early Christian tradition invoked the ascending bee as a symbol of the human soul’s ascention unto heaven.

(Translate the term, and “Apis aetherea” means bee followed by celestial or heavenly in Latin)