Christian saints were capable of many miracles. Healing and resurrection of the dead, casting out demons, levitation, foresight of the future … One of the most impressive abilities can be considered the interaction of miracle workers with animals. The ability to calm down, find a common language and even subdue animals was given to many saints. Perhaps they just learned it?
ROMAN TRADITION
During the persecution of the first Christians, the Roman emperors had an unpleasant habit of throwing troublemakers to lions. As the number of Christians grew steadily, lions rarely went hungry. Sometimes the criminals were simply left overnight with the animals in the pit, but more often they organized a performance: predators were released into the arena against a person tied to a pole or simply unarmed. Christians were executed so often that it became part of a monstrous tradition - they were thrown to lions to "ward off" droughts, famines, epidemics, floods and earthquakes, or rather, to calm down a little bloodthirsty crowd. A martyr's death of this kind began to be perceived as honorable, and many Christians wanted to end their life in the mouth of a lion. But, despite its popularity, this method was not reliable.
Back in the 6th century BC. Babylonian king Darius ordered the biblical prophet Daniel to be thrown into a den with lions, but the next morning he found him alive and unharmed. The lions did not spare Daniel's offenders, who were thrown into the same pit a little later. Later, the ability to pacify the lions was adopted by Christian saints - Apostle Paul, Saint Vitus, Tatiana of Rome, Saint Thekla, Great Martyr Eustathius and many others. The lions invariably refused to attack the martyrs, leaned towards them and licked their feet, and in some cases even protected them from offenders and other ferocious animals. As a rule, this did not save the saints from a terrible death - they were killed through beheading, crucifixion, drowning in boiling oil … But the spectators, watching the powerlessness of the executioners, were imbued with sympathy for Christians and respect for their faith.
ABOUT LIONS AND SANOSES
With wild lions, who certainly did not have any affection for people, the saints also had no worse relations. According to the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, Jesus himself, when he was eight years old, looked into a cave with lions near Jordan. The inhabitants of Jericho who watched this decided that this was the end of the boy, but after a short time the Savior came out of the cave, surrounded by frolicking lions and bowing hardened lions. In essence, the beasts recognized the son of God before the people did.
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Blessed Jerome, the most famous ecclesiastical writer of the 4th-5th centuries, the creator of the canonical Latin text of the Bible, once encountered a lame lion who accidentally entered the monastery. While the rest of the monks were hiding in the corners, Jerome calmly examined the beast and pulled a huge splinter out of his sick paw. Since then, the predator accompanied the saint everywhere, guarded the monastery donkey and even performed his duties when he lost his guard and the donkey was stolen by robbers. A similar story happened with Gerasim of Jordan, who also saved the lion from a splinter and a dangerous festering wound. In many myths, lions grieve for the departed people of God, tearing out graves for them with their own claws - as in the stories about the death of Paul the Hermit and Mary of Egypt.
Lions play a special role in Christian annals, and this is not surprising - the image of a powerful and noble animal humbly submitting to the saint looks extremely impressive. But, apart from the fact that real lions do not differ in special "nobility", for friendship with them it is also not required to have divine power. If you properly build communication even with wild and hungry lions (which, of course, strongly depends on their character), sooner or later they can accept a person into their pride. A grave after death is unlikely to be dug, but the spoils will be shared and, on occasion, protected from danger. It is possible that the saints understood this well.
ORTHODOX BEARS
Bears occupy an honorable second place among the fierce beasts that found a language with the saints, especially in Orthodoxy. The Monk Sergius of Radonezh somehow took pity on a hungry bear, giving him the last piece of bread, and since then they have become close friends. Saint Seraphim of Sarov, who lived for a long time in a cell in the forest, also fed the huge bear with bread from his hands, which once frightened the nun Matrona, who came to visit him. According to the logic of the development of stories, bears should have somehow served the people of God, but no - they just appeared, took bread from their hands and allowed themselves to be stroked. This could happen now, given the intelligence and curiosity of bears, as well as the absence of any fear of humans. Is that the descendants of the bear of Radonezh, according to legend, once a year came to his grave and bowed three times to the one who saved their ancestor from starvation.
THE FROG TRUTH
What about the other "smaller brothers" who are really smaller and not the size of a lion? Here St. Francis of Assisi, who lived at the end of the XII - the beginning of the XIII centuries, distinguished himself in the first positions. He carried the Message of God to birds and plants, preached to doves and flower fields, and was generally distinguished by exceptional kindness and mercy to all living things, even for a saint. Once he tamed the ferocious man-eating wolf that terrorized the vicinity of the city of Gubbio, convincing the predator to live in peace with the townspeople.
Anthony of Padua, a 13th-century Catholic saint, son of a noble Lisbon knight, who decided to become a monk, did not lag behind. Unlike more "cool" miracle workers, who pacified lions, wolves and bears, Anthony chose more modest creatures, but he did not skimp on the scale. So once, being in the city of Rimini, he tried in vain to convert the numerous heretics there to the true faith. When the words to the people had no effect, the saint got up on the bank, where the river flowed into the sea, and turned to the fish. They came to the sermon in huge numbers, and leaned out of the water, listening to the words of Anthony, opening their mouths in a sign of understanding and gratitude. After such a presentation, most of the heretics changed their minds and turned to the true faith. On another occasion, Anthony gave a lecture at a monastery in Montpellier,when the deafening croaking of frogs from a pond nearby flew through the open windows. The monks wanted to close the windows, but the saint stopped them and politely addressed the frogs with a request to postpone the chanting for another time. Those, of course, heeded, than raised the authority of Anthony among the monks to absolutely transcendental heights. At other stages of his biography, Anthony also shared bread with rats, saved the dove from the attack of hawks and forced one donkey to bow. It sounds modest in words, but in the context of specific situations, the effect was no worse than from taming lions.saved the dove from the attack of hawks and made one donkey bow. It sounds modest in words, but in the context of specific situations, the effect was no worse than from taming lions.saved the dove from the attack of hawks and made one donkey bow. It sounds modest in words, but in the context of specific situations, the effect was no worse than from taming lions.
The ability to communicate with animals, to tame them with a kind word or to pacify them with a firm hand is one of the most useful if a person leads a hermit life in the wild. Or, as an option, he lives in an environment where execution by being eaten by lions is commonplace. Most likely, most of the saints, who were actually capable of miracles, did not hope for God's help in this matter, but themselves learned the skill of training. But who knows? No wonder they say that a kind word is pleasant to a cat. The same applies to all our other smaller brothers.
Maxim Filaretov