Symbology The Christians Ripped Off - The Lion (Pt. 4)

V. THE LION, EMBLEM OF THE SCIENCE OF JESUS ​​CHRIST

The first Physiologus, this book written at the beginning of Christianity, which subsequently had so many variations, and from which our "Bestiaries" of the Middle Ages came, reports, on the subject of the lion, a peculiarity that Aelian (*1) and several other Roman authors attribute to it: that of recognizing the approach of hunters; also, they say naively, when it knows they are in pursuit it erases the trace of its steps by whipping the sand with its tail. (*2)

From William of Normandy, in the chapter already cited:

From far away in the mountains you feel the sound of the hunting hunter; his trail runs along his neck, which he cannot find or reach, the lay brothers where he must remain.

From far away in the mountain one smells the scent of the huntsman; with his tail he covers (erases) his trace so that one cannot find him or reach him in the coverts where he retreats.

We have seen elsewhere that the lion knows, despite all appearances to the contrary, that his cubs are not dead before birth, and that he knows the secret of reviving them.

According to Pliny, he also knows when the fidelity owed to him has been violated, and Jean Vauquelin translates the old Roman naturalist thus: "The lion, by its smell and scent, recognizes when the lioness has committed adultery in the company of the leopard, and punishes her very seriously." (*3) Here is what Pliny says verbatim: "The lion recognizes by the smell the adultery committed by the lioness with the groom, and takes revenge with violence; also the lioness, after this fault, washes herself in the river or follows the lion only from a distance." (*4)

So, in the very ancient fables, like Christ in the realities of the past, present and future, the lion is the one who cannot be deceived, because he knows.

VI. THE LION, EMBLEM OF CHRIST'S VIGILANCE

T he old belief, also accredited by ancient Latin authors, which shows the lion sleeping in the desert, day or night, with its eyes wide open, could not have been indifferent to the first Christian symbolists. Whether the alleged facts were real or not, what did it matter to them? Saint Augustine, commenting on a rather strange peculiarity attributed to the eagle, does he not tell us that in symbolism "the important thing is to consider the meaning of a fact and not to discuss its authenticity"? (*5)

This was how the Christian idealism of the past always and in everything looked at the symbol and not at the thing, at the spirit that vivifies, and not at the letter that dries up. Therefore, it saw, in the sleep of the lion with its eyes perpetually open, the image of the attentive Christ who sees everything, and who guards our souls from evil, when they want to, as a vigilant shepherd, as a good Shepherd. But our interpreters of the Middle Ages went further: If the Christian, according to the famous saying, is another Christ, how much more so the pontiffs and the priests. This is why, addressing the latter, they added to the lion, the emblem of justice sculpted on the threshold of churches, another meaning which, in his Latin Poems (*6), Alciat elegantly expresses thus:

"It is a lion, but also a guardian, because it sleeps with its eyes open; that is why it is placed in front of the door of the temples."

Also, Saint Charles Borromeo, taking up in the 16th century the symbolism of the ancient Fathers, gave, at the 4th provincial council of Milan over which he presided, the advice to adorn the doors of churches with the figure of the lion to remind those who have charge of souls of the necessary vigilance (*7).

The Far East here agrees with the Western and Christian Middle Ages: since what era, lost in the distant past, have the granite lions, stocky and fierce, guarded, as at Angkor Wat, in the company of the terrifying dragons, the threshold of the temples of India? (Fig. IX). For the symbolists of Asia, as for those of the West, the lions and the dragons never close their eyes; they said with our Brunetto Latini: "Every kind of lions holds the eyes over as much as they sleep (*8)."

Figs. IX. One of the lions of the temple of Angkor Wat.

William of Normandy, in his Bestiary, also underlines this emblematic character of the vigilant lion, and gives the following interpretation:

"When the lion sleeps, his eye watches, while sleeping his eyes are open, and clear, shining and alert."

Now, he adds, understand what this means:

"When this lion was crucified By the Jews, his enemies Who judged him most unjustly His humanity suffered death When he gave up the soul of his body And on the cross fell asleep; But his divinity watched."

And the old poet here agrees with Saint Hilary and Saint Augustine who see, in the lion's way of sleeping, an allusion to the divine nature of the Lord which was not extinguished in the sepulchre, while his humanity suffered a real death there.

*1. AELINE, History of Animals. Book II, ch. 30.

*2 . Cf. Bishop THEOBALD, 13th century. Physiologus. Head. of Leone.

*3. J. VAUQUELIN, Property of Animals. From BERGER DE XIVREY, Teratological Traditions, P. 54.

*4. PLINY, Natural History. VIII, XVII.

*5. Saint AUGUSTINE, Commentary on the Psalm. C. II. Embl. Vº.

*6. ALCIAT, Embl. VeI.

*7. MARTIGNY, Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, p. 369.

*8. Brunetto LATINI, Li Livres dou Tresor. Lv. I, CLXXVI. XIII century.