zoomorphism

 

The west window at St Nicholas Church, Sunderland depicts Jesus on the throne of heaven, surrounded by the evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, who are traditionally depicted as a human, a lion, an ox, and an eagle.

I am thinking about the representation of human character, and of the transformation of character, through animals (zoomorphism.

In the sixteenth-century Chinese epic Journey to the West, the monk Tang Sanzang is accompanied on a pilgrimage by the Monkey King, Sun Wukong (Monkey awakened to Emptiness); the pig demon, Zhu Bajie (Pig awakened to Abstinence; also known as Zhu Wuneng, Pig awakened to Power, or Ability), formerly general of the Heavenly navy, disgraced for attempting to seduce the goddess of the Moon; the fish demon Sha Wujing (Sand awakened to Purity), formerly bodyguard and attendant to the Jade emperor, disgraced for breaking the Queen Mother’s crystal cup; and the dragon prince transformed into a white horse, Bai Longma, disgraced for setting fire to a pearl gifted by the Jade emperor.

These represent different shadow aspects of human character—avarice (the attempt to fill internal emptiness by hoarding knowledge) (I am a Monkey); lust, gluttony; anger; pride, ambition—which are transformed, through self-inflicted suffering (a desolating experience) and then being shown Mercy (a consoling experience), into enlightened characteristics of wisdom; companionship; purity; and service to others. Each character receives a measure of reward, though the pig demon remains a work-in-progress by the end of the tale.

In my own faith tradition, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John accompany Jesus in the forms of a human, a lion, an ox, and an eagle.

Matthew is also known as Levi, the tax collector. He has chosen a path in life that places him outside of the community, considered a sinner, one to be shunned. He has chosen to gamble on his own skills to survive, believing that he will get farther alone (or, at least, in the company of like-minded others) than in the matrix of community. When Jesus finds him, he is alone, sitting in his tax booth. Yet Jesus calls him out from there, back into community—into a community, the Twelve, that explicitly harks back to the family of Israel. It is only in community that our humanity is given form. So, Matthew composes his account of the life of Jesus in a five-fold structure that mirrors the five books of the Torah, the account of a people, often unfaithful to one another, shaped, together, by divine instruction.

Mark is cowardly. We first meet him as a young man (albeit unnamed) who wriggles out of his clothes to run away naked from the scene of Jesus’ arrest. We meet him again running away from accompanying Paul and Barnabas on a journey to carry the good news into Asia Minor. Yet, Barnabas, the Son of Encouragement, encourages him—literally, builds up his courage—until the scaredy-cat becomes a lion, who writes down Peter’s memoir in Rome, a stone’s throw from where Christians were fed to the lions.

Luke is a Greek, perhaps a sea-going captain of ships (traditionally identified as a doctor, but that may refer to another Luke; his knowledge of ships is informed as only an insider would know). Luke ploughs his furrow through the Great Sea, rudder in hand. And at some point—most likely through Paul—he encounters the story of Jesus, and is captivated. Drawn back to land. Searches out Mary, the mother of Jesus, living with John in Ephesus. Sits at her feet and listens as she takes out the treasured memories of her son’s birth and holds them up to the light. Luke becomes the ox whose manger becomes a crib for the incarnate Word. His words—the two-part work, Luke-Acts—will carry the story further, all around the world.

John is the youngest of Jesus’ disciples, his mother’s golden boy for whom (along with his brother, James) she wants special recognition. He is the one who shines like the noonday sun in response to love, but whose countenance darkens with anger when he perceives a sleight. John will remain at the foot of the cross; will outlive all his fellow companions; will have to hear news, again and again, of their untimely deaths by execution. John will endure; and be purified by love until he can gaze into the sun of love’s light without being blinded. John will write his good news of Jesus from a very different perspective, a sweeping overview. John will become an eagle.

And what of you? What animal represents you, and the transformation you have experienced through life, and the transformation you have yet to know?