It is proper that we should first speak of the nature of the lion, which is a fierce and proud beast and very bold.  It has three especially peculiar characteristics.  In the first place it always dwells upon a high mountain.  From afar off it can scent the hunter who is pursuing it.  And in order that the latter may not follow it to its lair it covers over its tracks by means of its tail.  Another wonderful peculiarity of the lion is that when it sleeps its eyes are wide open, and clear and bright.  The third characteristic is likewise very strange.  For when the lioness brings forth her young, it falls to the ground, and gives no sign of life until the third day, when the lion breathes upon it and in this way brings it back to life again.

The meaning of all this is very clear.  When God, our Sovereign father, who is the Spiritual lion, came for our salvation here upon earth, so skillfully did he cover his tracks that never did the hunter know that this was our Savior, and nature marveled how he came among us.  By the hunter you must understand him who made man to go astray and seeks after him to devour him.  This is the Devil, who desires only evil.

When this lion was laid upon the Cross by the Jews, his enemies, who judged him wrongfully, his human nature suffered death.  When he gave up the spirit from his body, he fell asleep upon the holy cross.  Then his divine nature awoke.  This must you believe if you wish to live again.

When God was placed in the tomb, he was there only three days, and on the third day the Father breathed upon him and brought him to life again, just as the lion did to its young.

THE PELICAN

The pelican is a wonderful bird which dwells in the region about the river Nile.  The written history[4] tells us that there are two kinds,—­those which dwell in the river and eat nothing but fish, and those which dwell in the desert and eat only insects and worms.  There is a wonderful thing about the pelican, for never did mother-sheep love her lamb as the pelican loves its young.  When the young are born, the parent bird devotes all his care and thought to nourishing them.  But the young birds are ungrateful, and when they have grown strong and self-reliant they peck at their father’s face, and he, enraged at their wickedness, kills them all.

[Footnote 4:  The reference here is probably to the ’Liber de Bestiis et Aliis Rebus’ of Hugo de St. Victor.]

On the third day the father comes to them, deeply moved with pity and sorrow.  With his beak he pierces his own side, until the blood flows forth.  With the blood he brings back life into the body of his young[5].

[Footnote 5:  There are many allusions in literature to this story.  Cf.  Shakespeare,—­

     “Like the kind life-rendering pelican,
     Repast them with my blood.”—­’Hamlet,’ iv. 5.

“Those pelican daughters.”—­Lear, iii. 4.  Cf. also the beautiful metaphor of Alfred de Musset, in his ‘Nuit de Mai.’]