Mention in the first chapter of Genesis of the gift of dominion to man, immediately follows his characterization as the image and likeness of God. This dominion was to extend over all other forms of creation, "the fish of the sea" being the first named. There may seem to be little if any connection between humanity's present-day problems and man's original gift of dominion over the fish of the sea. But when allowance is made for the oriental metaphor which persists throughout Biblical narratives, even the more prosaic thought begins to find its way to the spiritual idea beyond the figure. Each individual consciousness as a sort of microcosm repeats the metaphysical processes recorded as concrete events in the Bible. This being understood, events fall into their proper perspective of relative importance, and the spiritual idea implied in the symbolism of those events is recognized in the operation of spiritual law.
On page 507 of Science and Health, in speaking of the metaphor which presents the spiritual creation or reality, Mrs. Eddy says that "water symbolizes the elements of Mind." Interpreting the statement concerning "every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly," she writes (p. 512), "Spirit is symbolized by strength, presence, and power." In the perverted sense of creation or the unreal history of mortal man, the sea since primitive time has stood as a type of evil, and "the fish of the sea" may well be taken to represent the activities of mortal mind. Considered materially, both the sea and the fish are unreal counterfeits of God's creation, all of whose ideas or activities are expressions of Mind. Throughout the Scriptures there is portrayed, just as in every-day experience there is enacted, the drama of perpetual struggle between the unreal activities of the carnal mind and the spiritual activity of divine consciousness or spiritual law. There may be traced also the growing human realization of the inevitable victory of divine intelligence or Truth over the belief of an evil intelligence and the animate or inanimate matter in which it finds expression.
Because of the fear and dread with which the ancients regarded the sea, and the pagan tendency to deify all the forces which were not understood, it was an easy step from the personification of the sea itself to the deification of the inhabitants of the sea. The heathen attempted to placate inscrutable powers by honoring that which was supposed to be agreeable to them, so the fish became an object of idolatry in all the ancient world, and the form of the fish was adopted as a symbol of protective dominion. When the chosen people came to live among the Egyptians, it is certain that they became familiar with pagan signs and idolatries, though they held to their own expectation of a Saviour who should redeem them from oppression and establish them in their rightful princely liberty. This ancient symbolism finally passing into Christian observance, the idea of protective dominion symbolized to the Egyptian by the fish was adapted as an emblem of the Saviour; and this higher hope of a saving manifestation of divine Principle has always stood opposed to the carnal concept of the dominance of matter and material intelligence. (See article "Fish," in Popular and Critical Bible Encyclopedia.)
