The Physiologus’ Portrayals of Jesus Christ’s Deceptions

A lion, an otter, and a mongoose walk into a bar. The bartender asks what they’ll be having. The lion, speaking for the group, says they’ll all just have waters. As the bartender goes to fetch their drinks, the lion makes a special request; “Can we get those in wine glasses?”

Aside from the Bible, the most popular Christian text in antiquity and the Middle Ages was the Physiologus.¹ Written in Greek, in Egypt, sometime before 400 CE, this work on natural history contains a multitude of tales about animals, plants, stones, and legendary creatures aimed at revealing Christian teachings found in nature.² The chapters on the lion, the otter, the mongoose (ichneumon), and potentially the panther and the unicorn as well, represent a collection of ancient Christian portrayals of a disguised and deceitful Christ.

The Physiologus typically places the chapter on the lion as its first chapter and sometimes ascribes three characteristics to the lion, sometimes four.³ Before divulging the first trait, it opens with a reference from Genesis 49 where Jacob calls his son Judah a lion cub while bestowing a blessing upon him. This sets the stage for a tale about restoration and renewal brought about by deceit and reversals.⁴ It then tells us the first trait of the lion is that it uses its tail to erase its tracks so the hunter cannot find its den to trap it. This gets interpreted to mean Jesus, the victorious spiritual lion, concealed his divine nature and posed as a mere human in order to save humanity.⁵ Not even angels, archangels, powers, or thrones truly recognized him during his descension and ascension.⁶

The fourth characteristic also casts a deceptive lion. When it hungers and no food can be found, it goes to an empty place and clears out a large circle with its tail. It lays flat at the entrance of this newly made enclosure and waits for prey to arrive. When the prey sees the lion, they travel around the enclosure to avoid it, but, due to the trick of the lion, they end up moving closer when they think they’re moving away. The lion then takes hold of them and devours them.⁷

According to multiple ancient sources, the panther too uses a deceptive trick to capture prey. It conceals itself in the thickets where it is invisible to any animals passing by. From there, it breathes out an attractive aroma. When an animal such as a gazelle or a goat becomes enticed by the pleasant smell and approaches, the panther attacks and captures its prey.⁸ Instead of finding something as delightful as what they smelled, they meet their gruesome end.

The Physiologus mentions nothing about how the panther acquires its food. It states all animals except the serpent are friends of the gentle, many-colored panther. When it becomes satisfied after eating, it falls asleep for three days and awakes with a mighty roar, releasing the sweet fragrance of its breath, attracting animals far and wide. So too Christ rose on the third day to be a sweet fragrance for the world.

The author of the Physiologus subtly presents the deceptiveness of the panther. Dressed up as a friend to all, barring the serpent, it leaves out key details that betray the wholesome picture. The chapter itself opens with a reference to Hosea 5, where God says he will be like a panther to Ephraim.⁹ What gets left out of the reference is what God plans to do to Ephraim, which is to rip him to shreds and carry off his body with no hope of rescue. Continuing into the chapter, the mild and friendly panther attracts the animals after waking from its nap, which it takes after being satisfied from eating. How the panther goes about procuring its food remains absent from the text. Just as the viciousness in the passage from Hosea evades inclusion in the Physiologus, the trickery commonly noted in the panther’s hunting method does too. As is seen in the story of the lion and will be seen in the stories of the otter and the mongoose, salvation only comes after Christ uses deceitful tactics before defeating his enemy. This just gets pushed to the background in the panther’s story. One final thing to mention on this point is the word used to describe the panther and the spiritual wisdom of God: poikilos.¹⁰ This word has a variety of meanings. The synoptic gospels each use it once in the same spot to mean “various” or “manifold” when describing a list of illnesses, but in the larger Grecian context, when applied to a person it indicates that person is wily, cunning, and full of tricks.¹¹ All this considered, it is a reasonable conclusion to draw that the panther’s deceit occurs off the page, prior to its three-day rest. Furthermore, the text itself behaves much like the panther in ancient sources. It masks the unsavory parts of the story behind an attractive aroma, inviting readers to partake in a seemingly only beautiful scene before realizing the full extent of what happened.¹²

Where the stories of the lion and panther leave out the carnage that accompanies the feline predators sinking their teeth into their prey, the story of the otter does not shy away from this graphic imagery. The Physiologus tells us the otter is an enemy of crocodiles. When the crocodile falls asleep with its mouth open, the otter smears mud all over itself and lunges into the crocodile’s mouth. Unable to stop this disguised mammal, the crocodile gets disemboweled and the otter emerges victorious. This symbolizes Christ’s descent into hell and his rising again on the third day. 

The mongoose shares a similar story, but it fights a dragon instead of a crocodile. When it finds a dragon, it covers itself in mud, hides its nose with its tail, and then slays the dragon. This represents Christ taking on a human body and hiding his divinity, for if he hadn’t done this, the devil wouldn’t have taken the fight. The otter and the ichneumon both portray a Jesus who dawned a disguise to help him defeat the unwitting devil for the sake of humanity’s salvation.¹³ Some medieval manuscripts substitute a bird in place of the ichneumon and make crystal clear that Christ enacted a pious fraud to deceive the deceiver and save humanity.¹⁴

The final animal in the Physiologus that may portray a deceptive Christ is the unicorn. The report says the unicorn is an elusive animal that the hunters struggle to catch. The only way they manage to trap it is by ensnaring it with a chaste virgin. The unicorn cannot resist jumping into her lap. Once there, she cares for the animal and proceeds to take it to the palace of kings.

Deception may creep into the narrative when discussing how it evades the hunters. Like the panther, deceitful stratagems are not stated outright, but like the lion, it is a cunning animal that easily evades hunters.¹⁵ Sharing parallels with the lion in its characterization as cunning and in its metaphorical representation as the incarnation, it may be inferred that the unicorn escapes capture through duplicitous means. However, this inference has yet to be explored in any serious capacity by scholars.¹⁶

Parts of the chapters on the lion, otter, and mongoose indubitably represent Christ deceiving the devil. Through dissimulation and disguise, the incarnate deity took Satan by surprise for the salvation of humanity. The extent of deception in the actions of the unicorn and panther remains an area for future study.

Endnotes:

1. Garsky (2024, p.271) reports it as the most influential and translated Christian work of antiquity aside from the Bible. Goldstaub (1900, p.341) says only the Bible surpassed its level of distribution to medieval Christian communities. Despite its prominence in the history of Christian literature, it now endures widespread neglect by modern scholarship. Mace (2024, p.10) agrees with Vollenweider (2019) that despite the recent surge of scholarly interest in the Physiologus, it has been routinely neglected in handbooks of early Christian literature. She goes on to say “This little book is, indeed, a UFO for historians of Christian literature and thought, still suffering from a bad literary and theological reputation and from its being mistaken for a work of zoology.” ↩︎
2. On the dating of the work, Garsky (2024, p.273) dates it to around 200 CE and says most encyclopedias date it to the 2nd or 3rd centuries. Andrade (2020, p.34) dates it to around the 2nd century. Scott (1998, p.430) lists eight scholars who published between 1877 and 1984 who date it to the 2nd century and one who dates it late 2nd or early 3rd but Scott himself dates it to the latter half of the 3rd century. Pakis (2010, p.116) and Schneider (2021, p.31) date it to the 2nd or 3rd centuries. Vollenweider (2019, p.122) dates it to the mid-C4th. Curley (1979, pp.xvii-xxi) discusses various dates ranging from the early second to the late 4th centuries.
   On the geographical origin of the work, Scott (1998, p.430) says it almost certainly originated in Egypt but there isn’t a good reason to insist on it originating out of Alexandria. He does however list seven scholars who do say Alexandria. Andrade (2020, p.34) and Schneider (2021, p.31) say probably Alexandria. Garsky (2024, p.273), Pakis (2010, p.153), and Vollenweider (2019, p.122) place its origin in Alexandria. Curley (1979, p.xvi) states an Alexandrian consensus and gives five reasons for choosing Alexandria. ↩︎
3. See Mace & Gippert (2021) for an overview of the MS traditions and their various chapter organizations. There are a plethora of different versions of the Physiologus and the original has long been lost. For English translations of this chapter, and the chapters on the panther, otter, and mongoose, I use and compare Cox (1983), Carlill (1924), and Curley (1979). For the fourth characteristic of the lion, see Carlill (1924, p.188). ↩︎
4. Jacob gives Judah the blessing after Joseph reunites his family through disguise and deceit. The blessing itself closely resembles the dream given to Joseph which caused his brother’s contempt for him. Similarly to how Jacob famously stole the blessing from his brother Esau through deceit, now Judah receives a blessing which the reader was led to believe belonged to Joseph. Many deceptions from the lives of Jacob and Judah paint the stage for the story of the lion; God disguised himself as a man and wrestled Jacob just prior to renaming him Israel, Judah deceived his father into believing Joseph was dead, Judah was born from a marriage onset by deception, and the child Judah had with Tamar that gets listed in both of Christ’s genealogies was also conceived through deceit. Of all the mentions of lions in the Hebrew Bible, this reference fits the Physiologus’ narrative about the lion aptly. ↩︎
5. The 12th century poet Philip de Thaun (translated in Carlill 1924, p.187) when talking about the lion’s erasure trick says “…God by a more cunning stratagem deceived the Devil.” Kordecki (1996, p.93) calls it a “clever deception”. Cox (1983, p.436) calls the lion erasing its tracks a “deceptive reversal”. Hirsch-Luipold (2019, p.145) mentions the lion’s deceit when discussing the disguise of the otter. ↩︎
6. Curley (1979, pp.68-69) offers a concise account of the scriptural and early Christian foundation for Christ’s disguised descension and ascension. See also footnote 125 in Cox (2018, p.216). ↩︎
7. Carlill (1924, p.188) ↩︎
8. Aelian, On the Nature of Animals 5.40, 8.6. Aristotle, Historia Animal. 9.6. Plutarch, De sollertia animalium 976. Pliny, Natural History, 8.62. ↩︎
9. The MT text of Hebrews 5:14 has God being a lion to Ephraim but the LXX translation has him being a panther. Also Ephraim is Joseph’s son. ↩︎
10. The exact word used by the Physiologus is pampoikilos. Pam- is a Greek prefix meaning “all” or “every”. This prefix elevates the variegation meant by poikilos to include every possible variegation. The panther’s coat would contain every color and God’s wisdom would be lacking in nothing. The verse the Physiologus is referencing for the part about God’s wisdom is Ephesians 3:10. The word used there is polypoikilos. ↩︎
11. For the use of poikilos in the gospels, see Matthew 4:24, Mark 1:34, and Luke 4:40. For the broader context see Detienne & Vernant (1991, pp.18-21). The panther is said to be poikilos like Joseph’s coat, an article of clothing famously wrapped up in deceit and brutality which is resolved after the deceivers have been deceived. The coat was used as a sign that Joseph was dead but in reality, he was alive and well. Although no deceit may be implied by its usage, the interpretation is ambiguous and up for debate. ↩︎
12. I agree with Cox (1983, p.443; 2018, p.74) in her suggestion that the text is itself a panther, hiding “its savage message with a sweet perfume.” Curley (1979, p.xxvi) when discussing the panther states “No phrase is without allegorical significance.” However, he did not seem to catch the possibility posited by Cox. He argues it is highly likely that the alteration from common ancient accounts of the panther to the Physiologus’ account was done to increase the contrast between it and the following chapter on the whale. Both animals use their sweet breath to attract animals, but the panther does it for salvation while the whale does it for damnation (p.xxxviii). I don’t think his take is incompatible with one that grants a deceptive panther. Where the whale deceives to damn, the panther deceives to save. ↩︎
13. Cox (1983, pp.438-440) calls these two animals wily beasts who represent a deadly and disguised Christ descending into hell to do battle. She proceeds to compare these two chapters to a section from Homer’s Iliad where Odysseus and Diomedes disguise themselves in animal skins to kill a similarly disguised Dolon. Hirsch-Luipold (2019, p.145) calls the muddy covering a deceptive disguise. Vollenweider (2019, p.98) says the stories of these two camouflaged mammals share the same underlying theme of Christ deceitfully veiling his divinity with a human body to assist in destroying the devil. Pertaining specifically to the ichneumon, he more directly states the allegory connects to the theme of salvation brought upon by deception. Garsky (2024, p.292) discusses the otter and ichneumon but does not outright say that Christ deceived the devil. He cites Vollenweider (2019, pp.97-98) as further reading about these two chapters. Out of curiosity, I emailed him about this and he responded on March 1, 2026 saying he does agree with Vollenweider about the underlying theme of the enemy (devil) being deceived by Christ. ↩︎
14. Wittkower (1938, p.253) provides a translation of the Latin provided by Neuss saying, “Christ girded himself with human weakness and enveloped himself with the dirt of our flesh to fight in the shape of man for the benefit of salvation and to deceive the godless deceiver with pious fraud…”. ↩︎
15. Vollenweider (2019, p.97) notes the parallel between the lion and the unicorn and offers further reading on the topic in citation 27. Drimytaton is translated by Carlill (1924, p.199) as “great cunning”, by Peters (1898, p.35) as “es ist aber sehr listig” (very cunning), by Curley (1979, p.51) as “exceedingly shrewd”, and by Muradyan & Topchyan (2021, p.301) as “most aware”. ↩︎
16. The closest I’ve seen anyone associate deceit with the unicorn is Carlill (1924, p.165) where he names the unicorn amidst a summary of God deceiving the devil.  ↩︎

References:

Andrade, Miguel Diogo. (2020). “The Panther and the Dragon – Two Battling Breaths in the Old English Physiologus”. In de Sousa, et al. (Ed.), English Literature in the World: From Manuscript to Digital. Humus.

Carlill, James. (1924). “Physiologus”. In Broadway Translations: The Epic of the Beast. The Edinburgh Press.

Cox, P. (1983). The “Physiologus: A Poiēsis” of Nature. Church History, 52(4), 433–443. https://doi.org/10.2307/3165564

Miller, Patricia Cox. (2018). In the Eye of the Animal: Zoological Imagination in Ancient Christianity. University of Pennsylvania Press. Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion.

Curley, Michael J. Physiologus: A Medieval Book of Nature Lore. University of Chicago Press, 1979.

Detienne, Marcel, and Jean-Pierre Vernant. Cunning Intelligence in Greek Culture and Society.
Trans. Janet Lloyd. Sussex: Harvester Press, 1978.

Garský, Z. K. (2024). “Der griechische Physiologus und die ägyptischen Wurzeln der frühchristlichen Naturdeutung”. In _Transzendentales Ägypten_. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill | Schöningh. doi.org/10.30965/9783657790760_014

Goldstaub, Max. (1899–1901) 1900. „Der Physiologus und seine Weiterbildung, besonders in der lateinischen und in der byzantinischen Literatur.“ Philologus: Zeitschrift für das klassische Alterthum; Supplementband 8,3:339–404.

Hirsch-Luipold, Rainer. “Unicornis captivatur. Das Deutungsverfahren des Physiologus und die Rezeption und theologische Deutung seiner Tiersymbolik in mittelalterlicher Dichtung und zeitgenössischer Musik”. Christus in natura: Quellen, Hermeneutik und Rezeption des Physiologus, edited by Zbyněk Kindschi Garský and Rainer Hirsch-Luipold, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2019, pp. 133-148. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110494143-011 

Kordecki, Lesley. (1996). Making Animals Mean: Speciest Hermeneutics in the Physiologus of Theobaldus. In Flores, Nona C. Animals in the Middle Ages: A Book of Essays.

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Macé, Caroline, and Jost Gippert (Eds.), The multilingual Physiologus: studies in the oldest Greek recension and its translations, Instrumenta Patristica et Mediaevalia: Research on the Inheritance of Early and Medieval Christianity 84 (Turnhout 2021).

Muradyan, Gohar, and Aram Topchyan. “The Armenian Tradition.” In The Multilingual Physiologus. Brepols Publishers, 2021. https://www.brepolsonline.net/content/books/10.1484/M.IPM-EB.5.122290.

Pakis, V. A. (2010). Contextual Duplicity and Textual Variation: The Siren and Onocentaur in the Physiologus Tradition. Mediaevistik, 23, 115–185. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42587769

Peters, Emil, Hg. 1898 (1976). Der griechische Physiologus und seine orientalischen Übersetzungen. Festschriften der Gesellschaft für deutsche Philologie 15. Berlin: S. Calvary [Hildesheim: Olms].

Schneider, Horst. “Introduction to the Physiologus.” In The Multilingual Physiologus. Brepols Publishers, 2021. https://www.brepolsonline.net/content/books/10.1484/M.IPM-EB.5.122283.

Scott, Alan. (1998). The Date of the Physiologus. Vigiliae Christianae, 52(4), 430–441. doi:10.2307/1584835

Vollenweider, S. (2019). Der Erlöser im Tarnanzug. Eine Studie zur Christologie des Physiologus, zu seiner Datierung und zur Rezeptionsgeschichte von Psalm 24 (23LXX). In Z. Kindschi Garský & R. Hirsch-Luipold (Ed.), _Christus in natura: Quellen, Hermeneutik und Rezeption des Physiologus_ (pp. 93-132). Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110494143-010

Wittkower, R. (1938). “Physiologus” in Beatus Manuscripts. Journal of the Warburg Institute, 1(3), 253–254. https://doi.org/10.2307/750013