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Ring Finger
Priests used to wear their ring on the fore-finger (which
represents the Holy Ghost) in token of their spiritual office. (See Wedding Finger.)
The ring finger represents the humanity of Christ, and
is used in matrimony, which has only to do with humanity. (See Finger Benediction.)
Ring finger.
Aulus Gellius tells us that Appianus asserts in his Egyptian books
that a very delicate nerve runs from the fourth finger of the left hand
to the heart, on which account this finger is used for the marriage
ring. (Noctes, x. 10.)
The fact has nothing to do with the question; that the
ancients believed it is all we require to know. In the Roman
Catholic Church, the thumb and first two fingers represent the Trinity:
thus the bridegroom says, “In the name of the Father,” and touches the
thumb; “in the name of the Son,” and touches the first finger; and “in
the name of the Holy Ghost” he touches the long or second finger. The
next finger is the husband's, to whom the woman owes allegiance next to
God. The left hand is chosen to show that the woman is to be
subject to the man. In the Hereford, York, and Salisbury missals, the
ring is directed to be put first on the thumb, then on the first
finger, then on the long finger, and lastly on the ring-finger, quia in illo digito est quadam vena procedens usque ad cor.
The ring finger. Mr. Henry Swinburne, in his Treatise of Spousals, printed 1680 (p. 208), says: “The finger on which this ring [the
wedding-ring] is to be worn is the fourth finger of the left hand,
next unto the little finger; because by the received opinion of the
learned ... in ripping up and anatomising men's bodies, there is a vein
of blood, called vena amoris, which passeth from that finger to
the heart.”
Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894 More on Ring Finger from Infoplease:
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