In several modern pictures of ‘The Good Shepherd’ Christ is depicted as rescuing a lamb caught by its wool in the briars of the wilderness. The lamb, of course, is the emblem of an erring soul, and the briars represent those sins which hold it back from answering the Shepherd’s call.
In connection with the saints, the Crown of Thorns is not used symbolically, except when placed upon the head of Saint Catharine of Siena,[143] to indicate her austerities. According to the legend, Christ in a vision offered her a crown of roses or a crown of thorns and she chose the thorns. When it is carried by Saint Louis of France it is to recall the fact that it was he who brought to France, as her most precious relic, the Holy Crown itself.
The tonsure was originally instituted to keep fresh in the memory the Saviour’s Crown of Thorns. And in the ‘Paradise’ of Fra Angelico[144] the monks are crowned with roses. Thus the emblem reverted to the original symbol. The Crown of Thorns was the parody of the rose-crown, symbol of rejoicing; the tonsure the reverent imitation of the thorny wreath, and angels at the entrance of Paradise change the tonsure for a wreath of roses.
In early German art the Virgin is often found seated in a garden of which each flower has its significance. Behind and around her there is usually a sort of trellis or bower covered with roses. The roses have very pronounced thorns, and the thorns are accentuated to recall that Mary is the lily and the bride of the Canticles, the ‘Lily among thorns.’ In an Assumption of Seghers[145] one of the attendant putti flies towards her with a single lily enclosed in branches covered with long-spiked thorns.
On the other hand, when the rose is the direct emblem, not the attribute of the Madonna, it has no thorns, for then it illustrates her title, ‘rosa sine spina.’
The Roman Breviary likens the Virgin to the burning thorn bush in which Jehovah revealed Himself to Moses and the simile was cited by Bishop Proclus in a Mary-sermon preached in the fifth century. Though enwrapped in the all-consuming flame of divine love, she yet remains unharmed. It is only in German art that this simile has been pictorially translated. German artists were familiar with the idea through Conrad von Würtzburg’s apostrophe to the Virgin:
‘In the thorn bush on the bare field
Moses, the hero of God
Saw in a glow of bright fire
The birth of our Saviour foreshadowed.