“Saint Isidor of Seville—­Monseigneur Sainct Ysidore, as the naturalists of old are wont to call him—­figures Jesus as a lamb by reason of his innocence, as a ram because He is the head of the Flock, even as a he-goat because the Redeemer was subject to the flesh of iniquity.

“Some took as His image the ox, the sheep, and the calf, as beasts meet for sacrifice, and others those animals that symbolize the elements:  the lion, the eagle, the dolphin, the salamander—­the kings of the earth, air, water, and fire.  Some again, as Saint Melito, saw Him in the kid, the deer, and even in the camel, which, however, according to another passage of the same author, personifies a love of flattery and of vain praise.  Others again find Him in the scarabaeus, as Saint Euchre does in the bee; still, the bee is regarded by Raban Maur as the unclean sinner.  Christ’s Resurrection is, to yet other writers, symbolized by the Phoenix and the cock, and His wrath and power by the rhinoceros and the buffalo.

“The iconography of the Virgin is less puzzling; She may be symbolized by any chaste and gentle creature.  The Anonymous Englishman in his Monastic Distinctions, compares Her to the bee, which we have seen so vilified by the Archbishop of Mayence, but the Virgin was most especially represented by the dove, the bird of all others whose Church functions are most onerous.

“All authorities agree in taking the dove as the image at once of the Virgin and of the Paraclete.  According to Saint Mechtildis, it is the simplicity of the heart of Jesus; with others it signifies the preachers, the active religious life, as contrasted with the turtle dove, which personifies the contemplative life, since the ring-dove flies and coos in company, whereas the turtle dove rejoices apart and alone.

“To Bruno of Asti the dove is also an image of patience, a figure of the prophets.

“As to the beasts symbolizing Hell and evil, they are almost without number; the whole creation of monsters is to be found there.  Then among real animals we find:  the serpent—­the aspic of Scripture, the scorpion, the wolf as mentioned by Jesus Himself, the leopard noted by Saint Melito as being allied to Antichrist, the she-tiger representing the sins of arrogance, the hyena, the jackal, the bear, the wild-boar, which, in the Psalms, is said to destroy the vineyard of the Lord, the fox, described as a hypocritical persecutor by Peter of Capua and as a promoter of heresy by Raban Maur.  All beasts of prey; and the hog, the toad—­the instrument of witchcraft, the he-goat—­the image of Satan himself, the dog, the cat, the ass—­under whose form the Devil is seen in trials for witchcraft in the Middle Ages, the leech, on which the anonymous writer of Clairvaux casts contumely; the raven that went forth from the ark and did not return—­it represents malice, and the dove which came back is virtue, Saint Ambrose tells us; and the partridge which, according to the same writer, steals and hatches eggs she did not lay.