Iris and the Rainbow

A rather pleasant iris is currently growing in one of the boxes outside our chapel. When I wrote this, the clouds were throwing hail against my study window, so the chances of the flower surviving the next week seemed small, though it did so. I have written about the iris flower already, but not its name. When I was a child, it seemed to be a common name for old ladies, which was then out of fashion, but it now seems to have been revived, especially among the middle-classes.

Iris was the Greek goddess of the rainbow, who appears to have served the other gods as a messenger, like Hermes, though she may also have been mother to Eros, the god of love. That the iris should be named after a rainbow goddess may be testament to the variety of colours and shades that a single flower may possess. Yet the rainbow of the Bible has a richer, though not unrelated origin. It is indeed a message from God and it is an expression of divine mercy and love, and yet also a warning that God is just and righteous, concepts with which the Greek deities had some trouble modelling.

I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. Genesis 9:13

A  D