Children around the world dress up as
oxen, sheep and donkeys this week in Christmas
pageants. Domestic animals appear beside the
shepherds and magi in every nativity scene,
introduced by St Francis of Assisi in 1223, [1]
but not in the canonic Gospels, where no mention
is made of the beasts’ adoration of the Christ
child. This part of story is to be found in the
New Testament Apocrypha, in later texts that
Christian authorities consider suspect and
misleading. [2] Sometimes, though, the
intuition of children is more
reliable than the pronouncements of scholars. What
would Christmas be without the sheep and oxen?
Not long ago a Chinese diplomat asked me
what his country could do to improve its image in
the West. I replied that his government should
take measures to suppress the sad commerce in dog
and cat fur. Television footage of canine and
feline victims stirred outrage last year among
Westerners, who might forgive Beijing a hard hand
against human dissidents, but cannot bear to watch
the torment of companion animals. Judeo-Christian
culture places great emphasis on kindness to
animals, and the ox that kissed the Lord’s foot
stood in the manger as a representative of all his
fellows.
Children spontaneously identify
with animals, and the Bible tells us that God
finds an affinity between the innocence of animals
and children. He chides Jonah, “And should not I
spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more
than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern
between their right hand and their left hand [ie,
small children]; and also much cattle?”
It
may seem trivial to worry about the welfare of
animals when we might fret more productively about
Iranian nuclear weapons or Pakistani suicide
bombers. But we must justify ourselves not only to
God, but also to our children, and at this time of
year we owe attention to a child’s view of things.
A deeper point about our own nature is at stake.
What is it that makes us different from animals?
Contrary to Aristotle, I do not believe it is the
faculty of reason as such. I own a terrier who
schemes on the level of a Talleyrand. If oxen and
asses adored the Christ child, moreover, are we
better than the beasts in our capacity to love?
Before attempting to answer the question, I will
try to show that the answer requires reflection.
Attributing to animals a sensibility for
the divine is far more ancient than the New
Testament Apocrypha; the notion goes back to some
of the earliest parts of the Hebrew Bible. Jews
still dedicate two Sabbaths each year to animals,
namely to the dogs and birds who aided their
liberation from Egypt. Exodus 11:7 states, “But
against any of the children of Israel shall not a
dog move his tongue [as they left Egypt], against
man or beast: that ye may know how that the LORD
doth put a difference between the Egyptians and
Israel.” Rabbinical interpretation links the
Pentateuch’s instruction (Exodus 22:31) to give
the dogs meat that is forbidden to Jews as a
reward for their kindness to the fleeing
Israelites. When Moses’ song of triumph (Exodus
15) is read in synagogues on the “Sabbath of
Song”, Jews are instructed to feed birds in
recognition of their gift of song, and more
broadly to show kindness to all of God’s
creatures.
Since ancient times Jews were
severely instructed to treat animals mercifully.
Animals must be butchered in the least painful way
then available, hunting was forbidden (and hunters
disparaged), Sabbath rest applied to animals as
well as humans, and so forth. Deuteronomy 25:4
forbids muzzling an ox that is threshing grain,
because it is cruel to prevent the animal that
produces food from partaking of the food. These
rules were enhanced in later Jewish practice and
celebrated in rabbinical parables. [3] Animals may
not be as close to God as humankind, but they are
not so far from God that He fails to set down
detailed rules of conduct for their treatment.
Now that Pope Benedict XVI has called on a
rabbi, Jacob Neusner, to explain Christology in
the Gospel of St. Matthew, [4] it does not seem
untoward to cite another Jewish scholar to explain
the presence of animals in the nativity scene. It
is fitting for the animals to be present at the
birth of Jesus, the “new Adam”, for they were
present at the creation of the first Adam. This
idea is developed with startling acumen by the
great Jewish theologian Michael Wyschogrod, whose
essay, “The Revenge of the Animals,” appears in
the book Abraham’s Promise. [5]
In the
Biblical creation story, notes Wyschogrod, God
creates Adam and states (Genesis 2:18) that it is
not good for man to be alone, and that he needs a
fitting helper. We would have expected the story
of the creation of Eve to follow directly upon
this, but instead, Genesis recounts the making of
the wild beasts and birds, and their presentation
to Adam for naming. But no fitting helper was
found for Adam amongst them (Genesis 2:20). “It
seems that God expected that as Adam got to know
(name) the animals, one of them would appeal to
him and become his fitting helper,” Wyschogrod
observes. Only after no fitting helper is found
does God put Adam into a deep sleep and make Eve
from one of his ribs. Eve is “bone of my bones and
flesh of my flesh”, Adam rejoices (2:23) and can
be united with her.
Wyschogrod concludes
from this exegesis, “While a certain level of
friendship with animals is possible, this
friendship cannot rise to the level of the union
possible between two human beings … We can now
understand better the companionship animals can
provide human beings, a recognition strengthened
by recent research on the beneficial effects of
pets on old people living alone or in nursing
homes.” Wyschogrod speculates that the Serpent,
the most subtle of the animals, took revenge upon
Eve (who had replaced the animals in Adam’s
affections) by tricking her into eating the
forbidden fruit, leading to man’s expulsion from
the Garden of Eden. Thus were the animals revenged
upon Eve.
Genesis further tells us that
humankind was only permitted to eat plants (1:29,
2:9) until the Flood, when God permitted the
eating of animals under certain conditions
(9:2-3). Wyschogrod sees this as a divine
concession to our “innately evil drive”, and
concludes, “It is difficult to escape the
conclusion that God would prefer a vegetarian
humanity.” Although only humans were created in
God’s image, he adds, “It does not mean that the
gulf between humans and animals is as absolute as
that between humans and God.”
The same
intuition about animals that places sheep, oxen
and donkeys before the Christ child requires Jews
to restrict their consumption of animal products,
and persuades Hindus and Buddhists to eschew flesh
altogether. Anthropologists offer persuasive
explanations for these practices in purely
material terms (pigs do not thrive in desert
climates, and cows in India are more valuable for
milk and dung than for meat). But this does not
explain why a herding people skilled in the use of
weapons would prohibit hunting, for example, or
why Jews do not consume both the meat and milk of
animals at the same time.
Wyschogrod’s
exegesis of the Book of Genesis does not answer
the question with which we began: how are human
beings fundamentally different from animals? Is it
simply a matter of degree, that is, human beings
are capable of more rational thought and more
selfless love? Nothing elevates humans more than
their response to the divine, which is a loving
response to divine love, yet we find oxen and
asses transfixed in love before the baby Jesus.
Animals do not appear to be capable of abstract
reason, although a case has been made that the
recently-deceased African Grey parrot “Alex”
learned the use of language. No chimpanzee has
learned language, and the “Alex” evidence is
disputed. Researchers continue to debate the
extent to which animals employ reason, and I do
not propose to get involved in the discussion.
Culture, I argued in a recent essay,
performs a role among humans equivalent to species
nature among animals. What radically
distinguishes humans from animals is that we can
transform our culture. Humans can befriend a
cocker-spaniel but not a coyote; it is not in the
nature of coyotes to cohabit with humans. Because
animal nature is fixed, the taming of dangerous
animals is a sign of the coming of the Messiah
(“the lion shall lie down with the lamb”), or the
subject of miracles, notably of St Francis. As a
spiritual exercise, the monks of the Buddhist
temple at Luangta Bua in Thailand live with tigers
they attempt to tame, albeit with occasional
mishaps.
But human cultures can suppress
those impulses which make us act like coyotes.
Most cultures do not change; they persist until
their best-used-by date, and then are destroyed by
their enemies or die of their own despondency.
Fundamental cultural change - a change as it were
in human nature - appears in human history as a
response to revelation.
Only one nation of
the ancient world remembers a sudden and absolute
transformation of its culture. I refer to Israel’s
belief that the Creator of all flesh summoned it
out of the depravity of the ancient world to His
service. Every Christian relives this
transformation, by forsaking his gentile nature
for rebirth into a new People of God. Animal
nature changes only through genetic mutation;
human nature bears within it the desire to be
transformed. “Thou has made us for thyself O God,”
St Augustine began the Confessions, “and
our souls are restless till they find their rest
in thee."
Augustine’s “restlessness of
soul” distinguishes humankind and animals
absolutely, rather than by degree. Animals are
content to remain what God has made them; our
nature draws us to something higher. Animals love,
and animals think, but they cannot transform the
way they love and the way they think; this
capacity for self-transformation is exclusively
human.
Biological evidence, for example,
leaves little doubt that our pre-historical
ancestors were sexually promiscuous. After one
sperm penetrates a human ovum, most of the
remaining sperm form a barrier around it to block
sperm from another prospective father. Humans who
inherited this capacity were more likely to
transmit their genes in a society where females
had frequent multiple couplings. Marriage as the
exclusive union of one man and one woman arose
long after our physical evolution as modern
humans, and our understanding of erotic love
became inseparable from our response to divine
love.
Animals may respond to divine love,
but they cannot alter their species-nature in
response to it. Our capacity for
self-transformation brings us closer to God,
precisely because we can transform ourselves, the
better to imitate God. Humankind thus has the
privilege to dominate the animals, who are
farther from God than we are - but not past the
boundary of divine concern. I am not a vegetarian
and do not object to the humane use of animals in
scientific research, but I believe nonetheless
that the presence of the animals at the nativity
teaches us something invaluable.
Postscript I do not know whether
dogs go to heaven, but I am sure that if I
encounter my terrier after I die, I will know that
I am not in heaven. Notes 1. St
Bonaventure reports in his biography of St Francis
(1274), “It happened in the third year before his
death, that in order to excite the inhabitants of
Grecio to commemorate the nativity of the Infant
Jesus with great devotion, [St Francis] determined
to keep it with all possible solemnity; and lest
he should be accused of lightness or novelty, he
asked and obtained the permission of the sovereign
Pontiff. Then he prepared a manger, and brought
hay, and an ox and an ass to the place
appointed.”
2. The earliest source for the
adoration of the animals is the Gospel of
Pseudo-Matthew: “On the third day after the birth
of the Lord, Mary left the cave and went into a
stable. She laid the boy in a crib, and ox and ass
venerated him. This fulfilled the words of the
prophet Isaiah: ‘The ox knows its master, and the
ass knows the crib of its Lord’ [Is 1:3]. The
animals received him into their midst and
venerated him without ceasing. This fulfilled the
words of the prophet Habakkuk: ‘In the midst,
between two animals, you shall be known.’”
Pseudo-Matthew 14:1
4.
Benedict XVI’s recent book Jesus of
Nazareth devotes a chapter to Rabbi Neusner’s
discussion of the Gospel of St. Matthew, in A
Rabbi Talks to Jesus.
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
