"This is all a sorry medley!" said Durtal, "and I fear it will be the same with the mammalia and other beasts!"
He compared a few passages. The ox, the lamb, the sheep, we have seen. The sheep is the type of timidity and meekness, and Saint Pacomius embodies in him the monk who lives punctual and obedient, and loving his brethren. Saint Melito on his part ascribes hypocrisy to the ostrich,
temporal power to the rhinoceros, human frailty to the spider; we may also mention among the crustacea, the crab as symbolizing heresy and the synagogue, because it walks backwards and away from the path of righteousness. Among fish, the whale is the emblem of the tomb, just as Jonas, who came out of it after three days, is typical of Jesus risen from the dead. Among rodents the beaver is the image of Christian prudence, because, says the legend, when he is pursued by hunters he tears with his teeth the pouch containing castoreum and flings it at the foe. For this reason it is likewise the animal representative of the text in the Gospel which declares that a man must cut off the offending member which is an occasion of sin.
Let us pause before the den of wild beasts.
According to Hugh of Saint Victor the wolf is avarice; the fox is cunning; Adamantius says that the wild boar represents blind rage; the leopard wrath, ambush and daring; the tiger, and the hyena, which can change its sex at will and imitate the voice of man, signifies hypocrisy; while Saint Hildegarde shows that the panther, by reason of the beauty of its spots, is typical of vain-glory.
We need not dwell on the bull, the bison and the buffalo; the symbolists regard them as emblems of brute force and pride; while the goat and boar-pig are vessels of lust and filth.
They divide this honour with the toad, an unclean reptile; the habitation of the Devil, who assumes its form to show himself to the female saints—for instance to Saint Theresa. As to the hapless frog it is equally defamed because of its likeness to the toad.
The stag is in better odour. Saint Jerome and Cassiodorus say it exemplifies the Christian who overcomes sin by the sacrament of penance, or by martyrdom. Representing God in the Psalms, it is also taken as the heathen desiring baptism; a legend attributes to it so vehement a horror of the Serpent, in other words of the Devil, that whenever it can it attacks and devours him, but if it subsequently goes for three hours without drinking, it dies; hence after that meal it runs to and fro in the forest seeking a spring of which, if it finds one, it drinks, and is then many years younger. The she-goat is sometimes held in ill-fame as being akin to the he-goat, but it more often is regarded as
the Well-Beloved, to which the Bride in Canticles compares it. The hedgehog, hiding in crannies, is interpreted by Saint Melito as the sinner, by Peter of Capua as the penitent. As to the horse, as a creature of vanity and pride, it is opposed by Peter Cantor and Adamantius to the ox, which is all gravity and simplicity. It is well, however, to observe that to confuse the matter, by presenting the horse under another aspect, Saint Eucher compares it to a saint, and the Anonymous Monk of Clairvaux identifies the Devil with the ox. The poor ass is no better treated by Hugh of Saint Victor, who accuses it of stupidity, by Saint Gregory the Great, who taxes it with laziness, and Peter of Capua, who speaks of its lust. It must, however; be observed that Saint Melito compares it with Christ for its humility, and that the exegetists explain the ass's foal ridden by Christ on Palm Sunday as an image of the Gentiles, as they interpret the she-ass that threw Him to mean the Jews.
Finally, two domestic animals dear to man, the cat and the dog, are generally contemned by the mystics. The dog, typical of sin, says Peter Cantor, and the most quarrelsome of beasts, adds Hugh of Saint Victor, is the creature that returns to his vomit; it also prefigures the reprobates of whom the Apocalypse speaks, who are to be driven out of the heavenly Jerusalem; Saint Melito speaks of it as the apostate, and Saint Pacomius as the rapacious monk, but Raban Maur redeems it a little from this condemnation by specifying it as emblematic of confessors.