I've found this discussion of lion symbols interesting and timely. For the
past year I've been working on medieval analogues to Michael Wigglesworth's
long poem of 1662, The Day of Doom, North America's first best selling
book. The poem is a Calvinist account of the Last Judgment. Wigglesworth
was a Puritan minister, born in Yorkshire, who emigrated with his parents
to New Haven and was educated at Harvard College. (Puritan appropriations
of medieval apocalypticism was the subject of my paper at Leeds; my thanks
to the auditors of that panel, who contributed useful suggestions.) Working
at Yale last two weeks, I had the occasion to read the poem for the
umpteenth time (a copy of the 1687 London ed.) and noticed for the first time:
Fast by them stand at Christ's left hand
the Lion fierce and fell,
The Dragon bold, that Serpent old,
that hurried Souls to Hell.
There also stand, under command,
Legions of Sprights unclean,
And hellish Fiends, that are no friends
to God nor unto Men. (stanza 36)
I searched resources (bestiaries, reproductions of Judgment images, emblem
books) at Yale's Beinecke, Sterling, and Art/Architecture libraries, but
couldn't find medieval or patristic analogues for the lion AND the dragon
restrained beside Christ at the Last Judgment. Am aware of scriptural
allusions to lion as satanic, of course (1 Pt. 5:8; Daniel in the den; Ps
91:13) Any suggestions?
Tom Long
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