Lion to Lamb

In a 2007 essay on leonine imagery in the Journal for the Study of Pseudepigrapha , Brent Strawn helpfully summarizes the associations of the lion in the Bible, Apocrypha, Dead Sea Scrolls, New Testament Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, and Gnostic texts. It’s a fascinating survey, rich in colorful detail (like the story of the baptized lion in the Acts of Paul ).

His main question, though, is why Revelation does the bait-and-switch of first introducing Jesus as Lion, then immediately, and permanently, shifting the imagery to Lamb. Most of the commentary on this switch has been on the Lamb side of the question, but Strawn raises the question, Why even mention the lion to begin with if it is simply going to be abandoned? His answer is that John is shown a Lion who instantly becomes a Lamb because of the negative associations of the lion:

“By introducing the lion, with its system of associated commonplaces, the author evokes a profoundly rich image-history, much of which is positive in tenor. But, by quickly shifting the image to the lamb, the author protects against the equally profound negative aspects that also inhere in the lion image, inviting in their place the host of commonplaces associated with the lamb image. This shift, with its rhetorical ‘safeguard’ in place, operates on a number of different semantic levels. There can be little doubt, for example, that much of the lion-to-lamb shift has to do with issues of power, dominance, and threat. Simply put, the lion has all these—indeed, its use as an image and metaphor is entirely predicated on such—but the lamb qua lamb does not have all these, at least not to the same degree. To be sure, this lamb is not the average, run-of-the-mill variety. This lamb, too, is capable of power, dominance, and threat (see Rev. 6.16; 17.14); this is, after all, a lamb that has seven horns and seven eyes, that is worthy to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing (5.6, 12, 13). But these powerful and potentially threatening qualities are rhetorically situated and literarily crafted within the Apocalypse. The lamb qualamb does not possess the negative system of associated commonplaces that obtain for the lion image.”

To support this, he points out that after the abrupt shift from lion to lamb in chapter 5, all the leonine imagery of the book is negative: “Leonine qualities recur later in Revelation in descriptions of (1) the locust horde with lion teeth that tortures those who lack God’s seal (Rev. 9.8); (2) the horses of the four angels, bound at the river Euphrates, whose plagues kill a third of humankind (9.17); and (3) the first beast from the sea, which has a lion’s mouth (13.2). After 5.5, that is, leonine qualities completely disappear from good entities in the Apocalypse, with the sole exception of the angel in 10.3; though even there the leonine image applies only to the angel’s shout.” He concludes, “The point is clear: the ambivalence of the lion qua lion would permit too much ambiguity—even negative connotations—in light of traditional patterns of image-use; the lamb image resolves this conundrum.”

This is possible, and perhaps a part of the intention behind the lion-to-lamb shift, but I find it unsatisfying. I suggest two further dimensions that might be at play. First, Jesus is not the first lion figure introduced in the book; prior to Jesus’ appearance as lion, John has seen the four living creatures that constitute the throne of God, and one of them has a face like a lion. When Jesus is introduced as lion, then immediately becomes a Lamb, he is being depicted as a Cherub, especially since He is a Lion-Lamb combination, combining the beast of the ark-throne with the beast of the altar. Second, I wonder if we have a progression here, a hint of a process of maturation. The elder says that the Worthy One is a Lion; but when the man John, the seer of the new creation, sees the Worthy One, it is a Lamb. Perhaps there is a Old-New contrast here; what the ancient ones expect as a lion appears as a Lamb. Perhaps this is one of the things that even angels long to peer into (1 Peter 1:12).