The lion that sleeps with open eyes and wipes out its tracks
The three natures of the lion in the Physiologus and bestiaries: erased tracks, watchful sleep, revived cubs, and the lions of Romanesque portals.
The lion opens almost every bestiary in the Latin tradition, and not by chance. King of the animals, it was also the noblest figure of Christ, the ‘lion of the tribe of Judah’ of the Book of Revelation. The Physiologus ascribes three natures to it, each linked to a moment in the history of salvation, and these three images, repeated for centuries, explain why so many stone lions still keep watch today at the entrances of medieval churches, from the cathedrals of the Po valley to country parish churches.
The first nature: the erased tracks
When the lion walks in the mountains and catches the scent of hunters, says the Physiologus, it wipes out its footprints with its tail, so that no one can follow it to its lair. The interpretation concerns the Incarnation. Christ, descending from heaven into Mary’s womb, concealed his divine nature, so that the powers of evil did not recognise who he was. The animal’s prudent gesture becomes the image of a theological mystery: God becoming man without being discovered by the enemy.
The second nature: watchful sleep
The second nature is the most famous. The lion, according to tradition, sleeps with its eyes open. The Physiologus links this belief to a verse of the Song of Songs: ‘Ego dormio et cor meum vigilat’, I sleep but my heart is awake. So Christ, dead on the cross, slept in the body during the days in the tomb, while his divinity stayed awake at the right hand of the Father.
From this nature comes the lion’s role as a guardian. An animal that never closes its eyes was the ideal keeper of sacred doors. In Romanesque Italy column-bearing lions, that is lions supporting the columns of portals, are extremely common: famous examples are those of the porch of the basilica of San Zeno in Verona, the work of Nicholaus’s workshop in the twelfth century, and those of Emilian cathedrals such as Modena and Parma. They watch over the entrance and at the same time recall Christ watching over his Church.
The third nature: the revived cubs
The third nature is the most surprising. According to the Physiologus the lioness gives birth to dead cubs, which lie motionless for three days, until the father arrives and breathes on their faces, or in other versions roars over them, bringing them back to life. The reference to the Resurrection is explicit: just as the cubs return to life on the third day, so the Father raised the Son from the dead.
The bestiaries of the second family add further details taken from Isidore and Pliny: the lion fears fire and the creaking of wheels, spares those who prostrate themselves before it, and has its courage concentrated in its chest and head. Some of these observations receive a moral reading in their turn, such as mercy towards the defeated, held up to kings and the powerful as a model.
Yet the other face of the symbol must not be forgotten. As Hrabanus Maurus had noted, the lion could also stand for the devil, the roaring lion of the First Letter of Peter. Many Romanesque capitals show lions devouring men or animals, and there the meaning is threatening. The king of beasts was at once saviour and predator, and only the context made it possible to tell which of the two faces one was looking at.