Saint Margaret’s
Anglican Church
Budapest, Hungary
Genesis 2:18-24; Psalm 8;
Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12; Mark
10:2-16
“The Lord God formed every
animal of the field and every
bird of the air…”
The medieval world was, I suppose, as fascinated by animals as any age before or since.
This reality is reflected in the popularity of bestiaries in the Middle Ages; bestiaries, a
literary genre which categorised known and fanciful animals and their known and fanciful
characteristics into word and picture; four-legged creatures like cattle; creepy, crawly
things like lizards and insects; fish that swim; and birds that fly.
Such bestiaries can be traced back to ancient Greek sources but of course also reflect the
pervasive religious beliefs and teachings of the Christian Middle Ages. The seventh-
century saint, Isadore of Seville, sometimes called God’s librarian, was probably the first to
compile a Christian bestiary, although the genre truly came into its own in late medieval
England for some reason, resulting in lavishly produced volumes complete with text and
lush illustrations.
The purpose of such bestiaries, however, was not scientific in any sense we would
recognise today, although they did contain a great deal of accurately observed data about
animal characteristics and behaviour. Rather, the point of these ancient catalogues was
primarily allegorical and ultimately moral. For, the medieval mind saw the world about us
as a reflection of God’s will and of God’s creative Word at work. Animals thus provided
moral guidance to humankind as a sort of parallel to Scripture itself; a reminder that we
are not so different from all the other creatures of the earth.
Some examples… Bats hang closely together when they roost and so keep each other
warm, providing an example to us of the importance of the family hearth and mutual
assistance. Doves are tame and docile, the perfect model for the medieval monk, the
primary audience for such works in any case; while falcons were brave and noble just like,
well, the nobles of the age who had sufficient wealth to keep falcons. Serpents shed their
skin annually just as we must repent and shed our lives of sin and evil every Lenten
season. Owls on the other hand, it turns out, were wise but nevertheless, being of course
nocturnal, turned from the light and towards the darkness, reminding the pious Christian
of the dark dangers of apostasy and sacrilege.
Our first Reading this morning is taken from the second chapter of the Book of Genesis, an
alternate account of creation different in many ways from the more well-known creation
account found in the first chapter of the Book of Genesis. By the way, if you want to know
more about these creation narratives and how they came about, be sure to attend Deacon
Dan’s bible studies the first and third Sundays of each month. Well, except not today.Our narrative today from Genesis, Chapter Two, finds the Man, in this account yet
unnamed, in the Garden of Eden, a vegan’s paradise to be sure, for no animals of any sort
had to this point in the story yet been created. So, there is the Man all alone, so to speak,
in the Garden. Well, God, being God, immediately recognises his mistake: He has in the
process of Creation inadvertently created loneliness. For, the Man could not possibly have
a relationship with, say, a pumpkin head, after all, not even at harvest time. So, God in his
divine wisdom creates “every animal of the field” and “every bird of the air.” Call it God’s
instant bestiary.
And while the animal kingdom in itself cannot bring completion and human fulfilment, as
can, say, a loving relationship with a spouse, it nevertheless grounds the Man and all of us
in the very creation of which we too are an integral part. Apparently proud of his
accomplishment, God now brings the newly formed beasts and creatures to the Man to be
given names, an act which symbolises and affirms the oneness of life itself; a way of
saying, I suppose, you, Man, are now steward of all I, God, have made. Learn from the
bestiary all around you; learn from the bestiary of which you are now also a part.
For, if there is anything to be learned from this charming alternate account of creation, it is
surely that we are both steward of God’s handiwork as well as part of it. The same lesson
in essence as that of the much later medieval bestiaries. Some truths do not change. In
fact, in the Church of England, of which Saint Margaret’s is a part, we have just this past
week completed what the Church calls “the Season of Creation” or Creationtide, if you
will, a month-long yearly period dedicated to understanding more deeply God as Creator
and Sustainer of all life.
And while this theme may be new as a response to the climate and environmental crises
engulfing us, the idea is, as we have just seen, as old as the bestiaries of centuries past, as
old as Genesis itself. It is at once both a season of action and a season of hope. But it is
before all else a time of reflection and recognition. A time for reality and reality testing.
And the autumn season, now fast approaching here in the Northern Hemisphere, is also a
time of harvest and gathering-in; a time in some sense to remember God’s bounty and to
be thankful for it.
Well, I have left out perhaps the most important beast of all in the medieval bestiaries. Do
you know what it is…? You will never guess. Why, the Pelican, of course. For, somehow
in medieval thinking, the Pelican, perhaps because of its red beak, was believed to pierce
its own side and fed its young with its own blood, reminding the world of Christ, crucified
and pierced for our salvation; reminding us too of the Eucharist we share to this day. They
may have got their biology all wrong back then; but it is indeed Christ, in his Incarnation
and Cross, which gives us hope.
For, without the Incarnation, there is no creation. Not the other way around. And without
Christ’s death and Resurrection, there is no life. We live to this day with the tension
inherent in the Cross, the tension between the eternal and permanent and the frail and
passing. But unlike the Man of Genesis, Chapter Two, in Christ, we are never alone. And
unlike the Man, we now have a name, given to us at our Baptism, given to us in Christ.
And so, we are this season of Creationtide and thanksgiving surrounded by the harvest
bounty and bestiary of God’s love: Cattle, lizards, fish, bugs, bats, doves, falcons, owls,
and, yes, pelicans.
What more could anyone ask…?Amen.
The Rev. Dr. Frank Hegedűs
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