The Rose in Religion Trivia Quiz

Answer: Aphrodite

In one account, Aphrodite weeps for her mortally wounded lover, Adonis, from which tears the first roses spring. In another, while racing toward Adonis, Aphrodite scratches herself, and from her blood sprang the first red roses. In yet another source, the sea-foam from which Aphrodite sprang hit land from which white roses emerged.

The rose also served as a symbol for Dionysus, particularly in a festival called the Anestheria, and for Adonis, in annual rites called the Adoneia, lamentations and dirges performed by women, sometimes before a rose-adorned effigy of Adonis.

The Roman religion borrowed the story of the rose from the Greek (substituting Venus for Aphrodite), but they also had a different take on the origin of the rose, with goddess Flora (patron of spring and flowers, equivalent to the Greek Chloris) mourning the death of her favorite nymph and begging her fellow gods to help her transform her beloved into the Queen of Flowers, the rose. Flora was important enough to have her own flamen, or priest, called the Floralis, and she had her own festival, the Floralia, on May 3.

Answer: Rome

The Rosalia was a pluralistic commemoration of the dead celebrated variously in May and June, though sometimes as late as July, throughout the Roman Empire. It was also called the Rosaria, the Rosatio (rose-adornment), or Dies Roationis (day of rose-adornment).

The Roman army also celebrated the Rosaliae Signorum (the sign of roses) during which they adorned the Aquila (the Roman Eagle as a military standard) with roses.

Flowers represented rejuvenation in the ancient world, and the custom of decorating graves with roses and violets, whose red and violet colors also evoked blood, was already present in many of cultures assimilated into the Roman Empire, as were floral spring festivals for cults of Dionysus, Adonis, and other figures of Hellenistic religion.

Answer: Song of Songs

In the Shir Hashirim of the Tanakh, or the Song of Songs (also called Song of Solomon, Canticles, or Canticle of Canticles) of the Old Testament, there is a dialogue between the lover and the beloved. In chapter 2, verse 1, the beloved says, "I am the rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys" (NJB). The Hebrew phrase "Chavatzelet HaSharon" was translated in the King James (or Authorized) version as "rose of Sharon", whereas earlier translations in Greek, Latin, and English (such as the Wycliffe Bible or the Great Bible) had simply called it "flower of the field", after "ánthos toú pedíou" in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of Scripture used by Jews at the beginning of the 1st century. Many, if not most, later translations continue the Jacobean tradition, truer to the Masoretic (Hebrew) text, though perhaps with an explanatory footnote (see below), while a few do not. The phrase "rose of Sharon" has inspired much poetry and prose, both secular and sacred.

There has been a lot of scholarly speculation as to what plant the phrase "Chavatzelet HaSharon" actually represents, including a tulip, a lily, an iris, a narcissus, a crocus, or even a wildflower. One thing is clear: it is NOT the modern bush (Hibiscus syriacus) called "rose-of-Sharon" in the USA and Mugunghwa in South Korea (where it originated), nor is it the Eurasian shrub known as Aaron's beard (H. calycinum) and also called "rose-of-Sharon" in the UK, for these plants would have been unknown by the people of the ancient Levant at the time the text was written.

The fertile Sharon Plain to which "rose of Sharon" refers extends between Mount Carmel (in northern modern Israel) and the ancient port city of Jaffa on the Mediterranean coast.

Answer: the Virgin Mary

The Virgin Mary, viewed as a second Eve, has been compared to a thornless rose. St. Ambrose, in the third century, believed that thorns only grew in the Garden of Eden after the Fall of Humanity. In the fifth century, Coelius Sedulius referred to Mary as a "rose among thorns". Bernard of Clairvaux said, "Eve was a thorn, wounding, bringing death to all; in Mary we see a rose, soothing everybody's hurts, giving the destiny of salvation back to all."

In the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary, approved by Pope Sixtus V in 1587, the caller (a priest) recites many titles for Mary, including Mirror of Justice, Mother Inviolate, and Mystic Rose (Rosa Mystica). After each title is invoked, the response is "Pray for us" ("Ora pro nobis"). (Another name is the Litany of Loreto).

In Guadalupe, Mexico, sits the shrine of Rosa Mystica. Pierina Gilli (1911-1991) prepared some modern Rosa Mystica devotions, which the Catholic Diocese of Brescia (in Milan) began performing regularly in 1991.

In the Christmas carol "Es ist ein Ros entsprungen" ("Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming"), the rose refers to the Virgin Mary in the original 1599 German lyrics, although Theodore Baker made the rose refer to Jesus Christ in his popular 1894 English translation.

Answer: decoration and splendor

The modern Catholic Rosary consists of prayer beads strung in three sets of five decades (ten beads), on which the precant (the person praying) recites the Hail Mary. Each decade is preceded by a single bead on which the Our Father (the Lord's Prayer) is recited and each ends with the Doxology or the Glory Be. At the crucifix at the beginning of the devotion, the precant recites the Apostle's Creed.

(There are variations on this formula involving additional Marian prayers.)

During the decades of the Hail Mary, the precant is encouraged to contemplate or meditate on one of the Mysteries (one might say the miraculous, inexplicable, or significant events) in the life of Jesus and Mary, which are grouped in four sets of five: Joyful, Luminous, Sorrowful, and Glorious. For example, the Joyful Mysteries include the Annunciation (by the angel Gabriel to Mary of her expectancy) and the Presentation (of the baby Jesus) at the Temple. The Sorrowful Mysteries include the Crucifixion, the Luminous Mysteries the Wedding at Cana, and the Glorious Mysteries the Resurrection of Christ and the Assumption of Mary.

The term "Rosary" comes from "rosarium", or rose garden, and in art since Late Antiquity, Mary has been depicted among roses or distributing garlands of roses. While gardens may be ornamental, the Rosary is NOT decorative in its purpose (though some may be more ornate than others). According to Catholic tradition, the Rosary was instituted by the Virgin Mary herself, when she appeared in a vision before St. Dominic (founder of the Dominicans) in 1208. Many common folk of this time had already begun replacing the Psalms with repetitions of the Our Father, the Hail Mary, etc., for they could not read. Carthusian monks of the 15th century added the contemplation of the Mysteries, which were later formalized.

Answer: Buddhism & Hinduism

A mandala is typically circular with a complex design. Representing the universe, the mandala is used by Buddhists as well as by Hindus as an aid to meditation. For both Hindus and Buddhists, contemplating the mandala helps them on their journey to Nirvana.

In Buddhism, this is when the mind, aware that the self is an illusion, transcends all desire and suffering and attains utter blessedness and peace. In Hinduism, it is when the soul, forgoing all other attachments, recognizes its identity with Brahma, the source of the universe and the universal consciousness sustaining all souls.

In either case, the soul is relinquished from the endless cycle of samsara (reincarnation).

Answer: Mecca

The rose, called the Flower of Heaven in Islam, symbolizes the prophet Muhammad.
Early rose-culture is connected with early Arab conquests and the history of the Caliphate (the reign of a Muslim ruler). Indeed, the very word "rose" is Semitic in origin, possibly from the Iranian root *vrda-, from which we get the Arabic "wurdah".

In the Hajj, rose water from Iran or Turkey is sprinkled on the black cloth of the Kaaba, a cubic, black stone shrine in the middle of Islam's most important mosque, the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. (This shrine is what Muslim faithful turn toward when they pray.) Oil lamps in the Kaaba also burn a fragrant rose oil.

When Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II conquered Constantinople in 1453, he commanded that the Hagia Sophia (Saint Sophia) church in the city renamed Istanbul be cleansed with rose water before converting it into a mosque. (It became a museum in 1935 but reverted into a mosque in 2020.)

Answer: Baha'u'llah (Baha'i Faith)

The Bahá'i faith, which believes in the unity of God, the unity of all religion, and the unity of humanity, originated in a movement in Shi'a Islam in Persia (Iran) in the 19th century. (It is NOT, however, Muslim, any more than Christianity is Jewish, and Bahá'i are persecuted in Iran and in some localities forbidden to make rose water.) In the holy book the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, Bahá'u'lláh writes, "Make use of rose-water, and of pure perfume", for it is "what your Lord, the Incomparable, the All-Wise, desireth." (par. 76).

Roses appear more than any other flower in Baha'i texts. Bahá'u'lláh particularly used roses as metaphors and a source of divine inspiration. His son, 'Abdu'l-Bahá, described the diversity yet harmony of the human race with roses: "Anyone who goes into a rose garden will see various roses, white, pink, yellow, red, all growing together and replete with adornment.... Were all of one color, the garden would be monotonous to the eye.... Therefore, I hope that you will be like a rose garden. Although different in colors, yet--praise be to God!--you receive rays from the same sun." ('The Promulgation of Universal Peace', p. 427).

Abrahamic religions are monotheistic and claim to worship the God of Abraham. In addition to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, these include the Bahá'í Faith, Bábism, Rastafarianism, the Druze Faith, and Samaritanism.

Answer: Hermeticism

Rosicrucianism is symbolized by a rose on a Latin cross, the rose being borrowed from the emblem of Martin Luther, though he has nothing to do with the movement.

Kabbalah is a body of mystical teachings of Jewish rabbinical origins. Gnostics (heretics of the Early Christian Church) believed that salvation comes from secret, esoteric knowledge rather than faith. Hermeticism, a cult based on religious and philosophical beliefs attributed to Hermes in late medieval and Renaissance times, provided that knowledge through alchemy, astrology, and theurgy (white magic taught and practiced by Egyptian Neo-Platonists).

Allegedly this movement was founded by a monk named Christian Rosenkreuz (lit. "rose-cross"), but possibly such a person never existed. Francis Bacon and other historical figures have been influenced by it. The fusion of Jewish, Christian, Gnostic, Egyptian, and pagan beliefs has made Rosicrucianism an enduring syncretic movement in many forms and associations.

One of the most successful is the Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis (AMORC) founded in New York City in 1915 by H. Spencer Lewis (1883-1939). Believing Egypt to be the font of Rosicrucianism, Lewis originally distributed his teachings through mail-order lessons, and with those funds raised he founded and sustained a highly rated Egyptian Museum in San Jose, California, still run by AMORC in the 21st century.

Answer: False

In fact, there grows in North America a score of native wild rose species, hearty shrubs that need little of the maintenance required of the popular rose cultivars.

Wild roses were very significant, particularly to Native American tribes of the West. The Paiute of the Great Basin (between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada) and the Nez Perce and the Salish peoples of the Pacific Northwest believed that roses protected the living from harmful spirits. They would attach them to babies' cradleboards, scatter them throughout their homes, and sew them into the clothing of the bereaved and the haunted. In other tribes, roses were featured in beadwork and quillwork, and rosehips were used in medicine and as a source of vitamin C - though the vitamin was not known to them, they did know that it prevented what Europeans called scurvy.

According to a legend of the Ojibwa (originally of the Atlantic coast of Quebec but now in the American Midwest and southern Canada), wild roses originally had no thorns. When rabbits ate them nearly to extinction, the remaining rose-bushes appealed to a magician named Nanaboozhoo. Because he was angry, the rose-bushes at first hid from him, but when they learned he was angry at the voracious rabbits for destroying his garden, they came out of hiding. Nanaboozhoo gave them prickly thorns and sent them home, and to this day roses have thorns to keep away the rabbits.