But Our Lord is sometimes represented as a lamb instead of a shepherd.[395] Indeed, this symbol is no less
appropriate than the one just considered, and has equally the sanction of Scripture. The manifold sacrifices of the tabernacle and temple all pointed to the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, the true Passover of mankind. The immaculate purity, gentleness, and divine affection of the Redeemer, and his patience under affliction and persecution, make this beautiful symbol an appropriate type of his innocence and sufferings as he was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and, as a sheep dumb before its shearers, opened not his mouth.[396] In the devout recognition of Our Lord by John the Baptist,[397] and in the sublime visions of the Apocalypse,[398] he is thus figuratively represented; and to this divine Lamb is chanted evermore the song of praise and honour and thanksgiving.[399]
Fig. 49.—Lamb as Symbol of Christ.
In the accompanying engraving from a sarcophagus in the Lateran, of the fourth or fifth century, the lamb, wearing the nimbus in which are inscribed the sacred monogram and the letters Alpha and Omega, the emblems of divinity, is standing upon a hillock, perhaps intended for
Mount Zion,[400] from which flow four streams, probably the “river of water of life,... proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb,” and dividing toward the four quarters of the earth. These streams are also variously interpreted as signifying the four evangelists, and the four rivers of paradise.[401] On a sarcophagus of later date Our Lord is represented in human form with a scroll in his hand, standing on a mound from which the four mystical rivers flow, and by his side a lamb bearing a Latin cross on its head. On either side are lambs, personifications of the apostles, to whom he is giving the final commission to preach in all lands the gospel contained in the scroll which he holds, and to baptize with the sacred waters at their feet. Sometimes twelve lambs are represented approaching one in the centre, as in frescoes in St. Clement’s at Rome, and at Ravenna. On a gilt glass patera in the Vatican Library the lambs are seen to issue from Jerusalem and Bethlehem, as indicated by their names written above, and to approach Mount Zion, from which flow the four evangelical streams united in the mystical Jordan. This is perhaps emblematic of the twelve tribes, or of the gentiles coming from the east and west to drink of the water of life. Paulinus describes a mosaic in
his basilica of Fondi, where a cross symbolical of Christ was placed on the rock, and two flocks, of sheep and goats respectively, stood around it. “The shepherd turns away,” he says, “the goats on the left, and embraces with his right hand the well-deserving lambs.”[402] This was perhaps the first of that series of art-presentations of the last judgment which culminates in the tragic terrors of the Sistine Chapel.
Sometimes a milk-pail is represented near a lamb, or hanging on a crook by its side, or even resting on its back. Sometimes also it is carried by the Good Shepherd. This has been magnified without due evidence into a symbol of the eucharist. It might more naturally be regarded as an emblem of the blessings of salvation, set forth by Isaiah under the figure of wine and milk, or it may refer to the soul’s being fed with the sincere milk of the word.
On the sarcophagus of Junius Bassus in the crypts of St. Peter’s, of date A. D. 359, are exhibited several scenes from scripture history, which will be [hereafter described]. In the spandrels of the arches over these is a series of bas reliefs, in which lambs are naively shown as enacting other scriptural scenes. In one a lamb, the personification of Moses, strikes a rock from which the water bursts forth, and another receives the law from the hand of God. Three lambs in a fiery furnace represent the three Hebrew children in the furnace of Nebuchadnezzar. Our Lord is symbolized by a lamb on whose head another, personifying John the Baptist, is pouring