Part 17

Thomas, “the Israelite philosopher,” as he called himself, author of the Pseudo-Thomas which is said to date from the second century, appears to have been a Jewish convert belonging to one of the innumerable “heretical” sects of the earliest times. It may be guessed, therefore, that the Pseudo-Thomas was first written in Syriac, though the text we possess is in Greek. It is considered the model on which all the other Gospels of the Infancy were founded, but the Arabic variant contains so much divergent matter as to make it probable that the writer drew on some other early source which has not been preserved. Mohammed was acquainted with this Arabian Gospel, and Mohammedans did not cease to venerate the sycamore-tree at Matarea under which the Arabian evangelist states that the Virgin and Child rested, till it died about a year ago. The Pseudo-Thomas contains some vindictive stories, which were modified or omitted in the other versions: probably they are all to be traced to Elisha and his she-bears: a theory which I offer to those who cannot imagine how they arose. A curious feature in these writings is the scarcity of anything actually original; the most original story to be found in them is that of the clay sparrows, which captivated the East and penetrated into the folk-lore even of remote Iceland. Notwithstanding the fulminations of Councils, the apocryphal Gospels were never suppressed; they enjoyed an enormous popularity during the Middle Ages, and many details derived solely from these condemned books crept into the _Legenda Aurea_ and other strictly orthodox works.

The “Little Child” of Isaiah’s prophecy was the cause of troops of wild beasts being convoked to attend the Infant Christ. Lions acted as guides for the flight into Egypt, and it is mentioned that not only did they respect the Holy Family, but also the asses and oxen which carried their baggage. Besides, the lions, leopards, and other creatures “wagged their tails with great reverence” (though all these animals are not of the dog species, but of the cat, in which wagging the tail signifies the reverse of content).

This is the subject of an old English ballad:—

“And when they came to Egypt’s land, Amongst those fierce wild beasts, Mary, she being weary, Must needs sit down to rest. ‘Come, sit thee down,’ said Jesus, ‘Come, sit thee down by Me, And thou shall see how these wild beasts Do come and worship Me.’”

First to come was the “lovely lion,” king of all wild beasts, and for our instruction the moral is added: “We’ll choose our virtuous princes of birth and high degree.” Sad rhymes they are, nor, it will be said, is the sense much better; yet, hundreds of years ago in English villages, where, perhaps, only one man knew how to read, this doggerel served the end of the highest poetry: it transported the mind into an ideal region; it threw into the English landscape deserts, lions, a Heavenly Child; it stirred the heart with the romance of the unknown; it whispered to the soul—

“The Now is an atom of sand, And the Near is a perishing clod; But Afar is a Faëry Land, And Beyond is the bosom of God.”

The pseudo-gospel of Matthew relates an incident which refers to a later period in the Holy Childhood. According to this narrative, when Jesus was eight years old He went into the den of a lioness which frightened travellers on the road by the Jordan. The little cubs played round His feet, while the older lions bowed their heads and fawned on Him. The Jews, who saw it from a distance, said that Jesus or His parents must have committed mortal sin for Him to go into the lion’s den. But coming forth, He told them that these lions were better behaved than they; and then He led the wild beasts across the Jordan and commanded them to go their way, hurting no one, neither should any one hurt them till they had returned to their own country. So they bade Him farewell with gentle roars and gestures of respect.

These stories are innocent, and they are even pretty, for all stories of great, strong animals and little children are pretty. But they fail to reveal the slightest apprehension of the deeper significance of a peace between all creatures. Turn from them to the wonderful lines of William Blake:—

“And there the lion’s ruddy eyes Shall flow with tears of gold, And pitying the tender cries And walking round the fold Saying: Wrath by His meekness, And by His health sickness, Are driven away From our mortal day.

And now beside thee, bleating lamb, I can lie down and sleep, Or think on Him who bore thy name, Graze after thee, and weep; For, washed in life’s river, My bright mane for ever Shall shine like the gold As I guard o’er the fold.”

No one but Blake would have written this, and few things that he wrote are so characteristic of his genius. The eye of the painter seizes what the mind of the mystic conceives, and the poet surcharges with emotion words which, like the Vedic hymns, infuse thought rather than express it.

A single passage in the New Testament connects Christ with wild animals; in St. Mark’s Gospel we are told that after His baptism in the Jordan Jesus was driven by the Spirit into the wilderness, where “He was with the wild beasts, and the angels ministered unto Him.” In the East the idea of the anchorite who leaves the haunts of men for the haunts of beasts was already fabulously old. In the Western world of the Roman Empire it was a new idea, and perhaps on that account, while it excited the horror of those who were faithful to the former order of things, it awoke an extraordinary enthusiasm among the more ardent votaries of the new faith. It led to the discovery of the inebriation of solitude, the powerful stimulus of a life with wild nature. Many tired brain-workers have recourse to mountain ascents as a restorative, but these can rarely be performed alone, and high mountains with their immense horizons tend to overwhelm rather than to collect the mind. But to wander alone in a forest, day after day, without particular aim, drinking in the pungent odours of growing things, fording the ice-cold streams, meeting no one but a bird or a hare—this will leave a memory as of another existence in some enchanted sphere. We have tasted an ecstasy that cities cannot give. We have tasted it, and we have come back into the crowded places, and it may be well for us that we have come back, for not to all is it given to walk in safety alone with their souls.

Of one of the earliest Christian anchorites in Egypt it is related that for fifty years he spoke to no one; he roamed in a state of nature, flying from the monks who attempted to approach him. At last he consented to answer some questions put by a recluse whose extreme piety caused him to be better received than the others. To the question of why he avoided mankind, he replied that those who dwelt with men could not be visited by angels. After saying this, he vanished again into the desert. I have observed that the idea of renouncing the world was not a Western idea, yet, at the point where it touches madness, it had already penetrated into the West—we know where to find its tragic record:—

“Ego vitam agam sub altis Phrygiae columinibus, Ubi cerva silvicultrix, ubi aper nemorivagus?”

The _point of madness_ would have been reached more often but for the charity of the stag and the wild boar and the lion and the buffalo, who felt a sort of compassion for the harmless, weak human creatures that came among them, and who were ready to give that response which is the sustaining ichor of life.

The same causes produce the same effects—man may offer surprises but never men. Wherever there are solitaries there are friendships between the recluse and the wild beast. All sorts of stories of lions and other animals that were on friendly terms with the monks of the desert have come down to us in the legends of the Saints. The well-known legend of how St. Jerome relieved a lion of a thorn which was giving him great pain, and how the lion became tame, was really told of another saint, but Jerome, if he did not figure in a lion story, is the authority for one: in his life of Paul the Hermit he relates that when that holy man died, two lions came out of the desert to dig his grave; they uttered a loud wail over his body and knelt down to crave a blessing from his surviving companion—none other than the great St. Anthony. He also says that Paul had subsisted for many years on food brought to him by birds, and when he had a visitor the birds brought double rations.

As soon as the hermit appears in Europe his four-footed friends appear with him. For instance, there was the holy Karileff who tamed a buffalo. Karileff was a man of noble lineage who took up his abode with two companions in a clearing in the woods on the Marne, where he was soon surrounded by all sorts of wild things. Amongst these was a buffalo, one of the most intractable of beasts in its wild state, but this buffalo became perfectly tame, and it was a charming sight to see the aged saint stroking it softly between its horns. Now it happened that the king, who was Childebert, son of Clovis, came to know that there was a buffalo in the neighbourhood, and forthwith he ordered a grand hunt. The buffalo, seeing itself lost, fled to the hut of its holy protector, and when the huntsmen approached they found the monk standing in front of the animal. The king was furious, and swore that Karileff and his brethren should leave the place for ever; then he turned to go, but his horse would not move one step. This filled him with what was more likely panic fear than compunction; he lost no time in asking the saint for his blessing, and he presented him with the whole domain, in which an abbey was built and ultimately a town, the present Saint-Calais. On another occasion the same Childebert was hunting a hare, which took refuge under the habit of St. Marculphe; the king’s huntsman rudely expostulated, and the monk surrendered the hare, but, lo and behold! the dogs would not continue the pursuit and the huntsman fell off his horse!

A vein of more subtle sensibility runs through the story of St. Columba, who, not long before his death, ordered a stork to be picked up and tended when it dropped exhausted on the Western shore of Iona. After three days, he said, the stork would depart, “for she comes from the land where I was born and thither would she return.” In fact, on the third day, the stork, rested and refreshed, spread out its wings and sailed away straight towards the saint’s beloved Ireland. When Columba was really dying the old white horse of the convent came and laid its head on his shoulder with an air of such profound melancholy that it seemed nigh to weeping. A brother wished to drive it away, but the saint said No; God had revealed to the horse what was hidden from man, and it was come to bid him goodbye.

Evidently there is only a slight element of the marvellous in these legends and none at all in others, such as the story of Walaric, who fed little birds and told the monks not to approach or frighten his “little friends” while they picked up the crumbs. To the same order belong several well-authenticated stories of the Venerable Joseph of Anchieta, apostle of Brazil. He protected the parrots that alighted on a ship by which he was travelling from the merciless sailors who would have caught and killed them. Whilst descending a river he would have saved a monkey which some fishermen shot at with their arrows, but he was not in time; the other monkeys gathered round their slain comrade with signs of mourning: “Come near,” said the holy man, “and weep in peace for that one of you who is no more.” Presently, fearing not to be able longer to restrain the cruelty of the men, he bade them depart with God’s blessing.

Here is no marvel; only sympathy which is sometimes the greatest of marvels. It needed the mind of a Shakespeare to probe just this secret recess of feeling for animals:—

“—— What dost thou strike at, Marcus, with thy knife? —— At that I have killed, my Lord, a fly. —— Out on thee, murderer, thou killest my heart; Mine eyes are cloyed with view of tyranny; A deed of death done on the innocent, Becomes not Titus’ brother; get thee gone, I see thou art not for my company. —— Alas! my Lord, I have but killed a fly. —— But how if that fly had a father and mother? How would he hang his slender gilded wings And buz lamented doings in the air? Poor harmless fly! That with his pretty buzzing melody Came here to make us merry, and thou hast killed him.”

If St. Bernard saw a hare pursued by dogs or birds threatened by a hawk he could not resist making the sign of the cross, and his benediction always brought safety. It is to this saint that we owe the exquisite saying, “If mercy were a sin I think I could not keep myself from committing it.”

Apart from the rest, stands one saint who brought the wild to the neighbourhood of a bustling, trafficking little Italian town of the thirteenth century and peopled it with creatures which, whether of fancy or of fact, will live for ever. How St. Francis tamed the “wolf of Agobio” is the most famous if not altogether the most credible of the animal stories related of him. That wolf was a quadruped without morals; not only had he eaten kids but also men. All attempts to kill him failed, and the townsfolk were afraid of venturing outside the walls even in broad daylight. One day St. Francis, against the advice of all, went out to have a serious talk with the wolf. He soon found him and, “Brother Wolf,” he said, “you have eaten not only animals but men made in the image of God, and certainly you deserve the gallows; nevertheless, I wish to make peace between you and these people, brother Wolf, so that you may offend them no more, and neither they nor their dogs shall attack you.” The wolf seemed to agree, but the saint wished to have a distinct proof of his solemn engagement to fulfil his part in the peace, whereupon the wolf stood up on his hind legs and laid his paw on the saint’s hand. Francis then promised that the wolf should be properly fed for the rest of his days, “for well I know,” he said kindly, “that all your evil deeds were caused by hunger”—upon which text several sermons might be preached, for truly many a sinner may be reformed by a good dinner and by nothing else. The contract was kept on both sides, and the wolf lived happily for some years—“notricato cortesemente dalla gente”—at the end of which he died of old age, sincerely mourned by all the inhabitants.

If any one decline to believe in the wolf of Gubbio, why, he must be left to his invincible ignorance. But there are other tales in the _Fioretti_ and in the _Legenda Aurea_ which are nowise hard to believe. What more likely than that Francis, on meeting a youth who had wood-doves to sell, looked at the birds “con l’occhio pietoso,” and begged the youth not to give them into the cruel hands that would kill them? The young man, “inspired by God,” gave the doves to the saint, who held them against his breast, saying, “Oh, my sisters, innocent doves, why did you let yourselves be caught? Now will I save you from death and make nests for you, so that you may increase and multiply according to the commandment of our Creator.” Schopenhauer mentions, with emphatic approval, the Indian merchant at the fair of Astrachan who, when he has a turn of good luck, goes to the market-place and buys birds, which he sets at liberty. The holy Francis not only set his doves free, but thought about their future, a refinement of benevolence which might “almost have persuaded” the humane though crusty old philosopher to put on the Franciscan habit.

(At this point I chance to see from my window a kitten in the act of annoying a rather large snake. It is a coiled-up snake; probably an Itongo. It requires a good five minutes to induce the kitten to abandon its quarry and to convey the snake to a safe place under the myrtles. This being done, I resume my pen.)

I have remarked that in some respects the Saint of Assisi stands apart from the other saints who took notice of animals. It was a common thing, for instance, for saints to preach to creatures, but there is an individual note in the sermon of Francis to the birds which is not found elsewhere. The reason why St. Anthony preached to the fishes at Rimini was that the “heretics” would not listen to him, and St. Martin addressed the water-fowl who were diving after fish in the Loire because, having compared them to the devil, seeking whom he may devour, he thought it necessary to order them to depart from those waters—which they immediately did, no doubt frightened to death by the apparition of a gesticulating saint and the wild-looking multitude. The motive of Francis was neither pique at not being listened to nor the temptation to show miraculous skill as a bird-scarer; he was moved solely by an effusion of tender sentiment. Birds in great quantities had alighted in a neighbouring field: a beautiful sight which every dweller in the country must have sometimes seen and asked himself, was it a parliament, a garden party, a halt in a journey? “Wait a little for me here upon the road,” said the saint to his companions; “I am going to preach to my sisters the birds.” And so, “_having greeted them as creatures endowed with reason_,” he went on to say: “Birds, my sisters, you ought to give great praise to your Creator, who dressed you with feathers, who gave you wings to fly with, who granted you all the domains of the air, whose solicitude watches over you.” The birds stretched out their necks, fluttered their wings, opened their beaks, and looked at the preacher with attention. When he had done, he passed in the midst of them and touched them with his habit, and not one of them stirred till he gave them leave to fly away.

The saint lifted worms out of the path lest they should be crushed, and during the winter frosts, for fear that the bees should die in the hive, he brought honey to them and the best wines that he could find. Near his cell at Portionuculo there was a fig-tree, and on the fig-tree lived a cicada. One day the Servant of God stretched out his hand and said, “Come to me, my sister Cicada”; and at once the insect flew upon his hand. And he said to it, “Sing, my sister Cicada, and praise thy Lord.” And having received his permission she sang her song. The biographies that were written without the inquisition into facts which we demand, gave a living idea of the man, not a photograph of his skeleton. What mattered if romance were mixed with truth when the total was true? We know St. Francis of Assisi as if he had been our next-door neighbour. It would have needed unbounded genius to invent such a character, and there was nothing to be gained by inventing it. The legends which represent him as one who consistently treated animals as creatures endowed with reason are in discord with orthodox teaching; they skirt dangerously near to heresy. Giordano Bruno was accused of having said that men and animals had the same origin; to hold such an opinion qualified you for the stake. But the Church that canonised Buddha under the name of St. Josephat has had accesses of toleration which must have made angels rejoice.

Some think that Francis was at one time a troubadour, and troubadours had many links with those Manichæan heretics whom Catholics charged with believing in the transmigration of souls. This may interest the curious, but the doctrine of metempsychosis has little to do with the vocation of the Asiatic recluse as a beast-tamer, and St. Francis of Assisi was true brother to that recluse. He was the Fakeer or Dervish of the West. When the inherent mysticism in man’s nature brought the Dervishes into existence soon after Mohammed’s death, in spite of the Prophet’s well-known dislike for religious orders, they justified themselves by quoting the text from the Koran, “Poverty is my pride.” It would serve the Franciscan equally well. The begging friar was an anachronism in the religion of Islam as he is an anachronism in modern society, but what did that matter to him? He thought and he thinks that he will outlive both.

The Abdâl or pre-eminently holy Dervish who lived in the desert with friendly beasts over whom he exercised an extraordinary power, became the centre of a legend, almost of a cult, like his Christian counterpart. There were several Abdâls of high repute during the reigns of the early Ottoman Sultans. Perhaps there was more confidence in their sanctity than in their sanity, for while the Catholic historian finds it inconvenient to admit the hypothesis of madness as accounting for even the strangest conduct of the saints of the desert or their mediæval descendants, a devout Oriental sees no irreverence in recognising the possible affinity between sainthood and mental alienation. In India the holy recluse who tames wild beasts is as much alive to-day as in any former time. Whatever is very old is still a part of the everyday life of the Indian people. Accordingly the native newspapers frequently report that some prince was attacked by a savage beast while out hunting, when, at the nick of time, a venerable saint appeared at whose first word the beast politely relaxed his hold. Those who know India best by no means think that all such stories are invented. Why should they be? Cardinal Massaia (who wore, by the by, the habit of Francis) stated that the lions he met in the desert had very good manners. A few years ago an old lady met a large, well-grown lioness in the streets of Chatres; mistaking it for a large dog, she patted it on the head and it followed her for some time until it was observed by others, when the whole town was seized with panic and barred doors and windows. Even with the provocation of such mistrust the lioness behaved well, and allowed itself to be reconducted to the menagerie from which it had escaped.