The Book of the Holy Rosary: Part II, Chapter VII. Scripture Types of the Third Sorrowful Mystery: The Victim of Sacrifice Caught in the Thorns; The Prophet Exposed to the Lions
1. The Victim of the sacrifice caught in the thorns.
According to the ideas and customs prevalent throughout all nations of the world, there were two well-known public and sacred uses of the crown—as the acknowledged sacred symbol of royalty, and the religious adornment of the victim destined for sacrifice. Thus Evander, in the eighth book of the AEneid of Virgil, relates in what way the crown and sceptre of the kingdom had been sent to him:
“Regnique coronam, Cum sceptro misit, mandatque insignia Tarcho.” Lib. viii. 505.
And the same poet, describing the mortality liable to be caused by a murrain among cattle, says, it is such that even the very victim when it is standing at the altar may fall down in a dying state, as the ministers of the sacrifice are tardy in putting the crown of white wool round its head (Georgics, iii. 486). And when the people of Lystra thought that Paul and Barnabas could be no less than the gods come down in the likeness of men, the priest of Jupiter came out with his bulls and their “crowns,” to offer sacrifice (Acts xiv. 12). And so prevalent was the custom of associating the symbol of the crown with that which was offered on an altar in sacrifice, that it was extended to inanimate offerings, as Virgil describes even the goblet of wine being encircled with a crown previous to its being offered.
“Tum Pater Anchises magnum cratera corona, Induit, implevitque mero, Divosque vocavit.” Aeneid, iii. 525.
In civil life, the crown had its place as the natural mark of distinction for the victor in any kind of public game or contest of skill. Thus, the victors in the Olympic games of Greece were crowned with laurels, and in the races described in the fifth book of the AEneid, AEneas promises to the three first in the race, a crown of olive to each; while in private life crowns were worn by guests at banquets, as the unbelievers say in the Book of Wisdom, “Come, let us crown ourselves with roses before they fade, let no meadow escape our riot” (Wisd. ii. 8). But in public or political life, the crown ranked as a sacred emblem, when it was the distinctive mark of royalty (the person of the king being always regarded as “sacrosanct,” that is, bound under a divine sanction to the duties of his office); or as the sacred ornament of the victim dedicated to God and about to be put to death in the presence of the altar of sacrifice, as a fitting preparation to its being offered upon it. With the above brief remarks in the way of introduction, we proceed to the figure which typifies the Divine Victim of sacrifice provided by God, as He stands before all the people crowned for His sacrifice, with His crown of thorns.
Jesus, then, to proceed with the explanation of our figure, is the Victim pre-ordained of God from all eternity to be offered up as the Ransom for the life of all whom the Eternal Father has called to be the heirs of His promised salvation; and it becomes Him, according to that which we have seen to be the universally accepted custom of all people, to receive and wear on His head the sacrificial crown which denotes Him to be a Victim solemnly destined for sacrifice to God. Jesus then receives this sacrificial crown, and it proves to be a garland of thorns; and to be convinced how appropriate such a crown is to the Victim who offers Himself of His own free will to pay the price of redemption for the sin of Adam, it needs but to be remembered that His crown of sacrifice is a garland woven from that which the earth was sentenced to produce in consequence of Adam’s sin. “Cursed is the earth in thy work,” said God to Adam, “thorns and thistles shall it bear to thee” (Gen. iii. 18). The first Adam finds the work of raising his subsistence from the soil beset with the thorns which the earth produced in consequence of his sin, and the second Adam finds the work of His atoning sacrifice equally beset with the same thorns. He is solemnly crowned as the Victim of sacrifice with a crown of thorns, and we shall shortly see Him go forth to the consummation of His sacrifice, wearing for His sacrificial crown the selfsame thorns that were the fruit of the transgression which His sacrifice was to redeem.
The Roman soldiers, then, having plaited a crown of thorns, placed it upon the head of the Lamb which was prepared before the foundations of the world. And thus it came to pass that the earth furnished its redeeming Victim with a crown of sacrifice, woven from those very thorns which itself bore as the participant in the sin of Adam. “And the angel said to Abraham, Lay not thy hand upon the boy, neither do thou anything to him. And Abraham,” continues the Book of Genesis, “saw behind his back a ram amongst the thorns, sticking fast by the horns, which he took and offered for a holocaust instead of his son” (Gen. xxii. 13). Adam and all his children, notwithstanding that they were heirs of the promises of God, had fallen by transgression, so that their life had become forfeit to the justice of God. In this Mystery of the Crowning with Thorns, we contemplate the Angel of the New Testament, who says to the Eternal Father, “Lay not Thy hand upon the heirs of Thy promises, neither do Thou anything to them, notwithstanding that their life is forfeit. Behold here is a Victim, who is caught in the thorns, and who is bound so fast that He cannot escape. See, He offers Himself for their life. Take Thou Him, then, O Eternal Father, and offer Him for a holocaust, and spare the forfeit life of those who are the predestined heirs of Thy promises.”
O true Lamb of God, caught in the thorns, and bound fast by the bands of Thy love, have mercy upon us, and let the light of Thy countenance shine upon us!
2. The prophet who was cast into the den of lions by the friend who sought to save him.
What is so remarkable in the various acts of our Lord’s Passion, from the moment that He is brought before the court of Pontius Pilate, is the hand of God overruling the course of events. For everything which Pilate does as an act of friendliness towards the accused, and with a view to consult for His eventually being set free, only issues in the infliction of a new intermediate suffering, preparatory to the consummation of His sacrifice on the Cross, fulfilling thereby the words of the prophet, “With these wounds have I been wounded in the house of them who loved Me” (Zach. xiii. 6).
It was Pilate’s desire to satisfy the passions of the Jews with something short of the death clamoured for by His enemies which caused him reluctantly to say, “I will scourge Him and then let Him go.” It was the same desire to save Him from death that extorted from him reluctantly His exposure to the mockery of the purple robe, and the crown of thorns, and the derisive maltreatment of the soldiery. But so intense was the hatred of Christ’s fellow-citizens against Him on account of His being a Man of God, contrary to their ways, and filled with the Spirit of God above them, that Pilate’s reluctance was forced in the end to yield to their importunity, and to trust Him to the protection of His God, leaving Him to say with the Psalmist, “They mocked Me with mockery, they gnashed upon Me with their teeth; Lord, when wilt Thou look upon Me? restore My soul from their malignity, My only one from the lions” (Ps. xxxiv. 17).
Of this we have a striking and instructive figure in the parallel history of the prophet Daniel, who incurred the bitter and malignant hatred of his fellow-citizens for the same reason as Jesus Christ—his fidelity to the law and worship of his God, and because the Spirit of God was greater in him than in them (Dan. vi. 3). They said then to one another, “We shall not find any cause against him except perchance in the law of his God.” They therefore came to the king and asked that an imperial decree should go forth, in virtue of which “any one who should make any petition to any god or man except to the king, should be cast into the den of lions.” This was meant as a snare against Daniel, just as the Jews came to Christ with the question, “Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not?” in order that they might have an occasion against Him with the Roman power. Daniel went to his regular hours of prayer regardless of the edict, and was presently accused to the king of setting himself above the edict of the empire, as the Jews accused Christ of setting Himself above the Roman empire, by making Himself a king. “Then the king was made very sad on account of Daniel, and set his heart upon letting him go, and laboured till the setting of the sun to save him.” But the men, perceiving this, came and said to the king, “Know, O king, that the law of the Medes and Persians is, that every decree which the king hath made may not be changed. Then the king commanded, and they brought Daniel and cast him into the den of lions” (Dan. vi. 14). “Whosoever,” said the Jews, “maketh himself a king, setteth himself up against Caesar and Pilate, overcome by their remonstrances, gave Jesus into the hands of the soldiers, worse than the lions.
The sequel is equally remarkable. “When Daniel came out safe from the den of lions, at the command of the king, they brought the men who had accused Daniel, and they cast them, themselves, their wives, and their little ones, into the den of lions; and they did not reach the pavement before the lions seized them, and broke all their bones” (Dan. vi. 24). Some years after the resurrection of Christ from the dead, the same Roman soldiery, into whose midst Jesus had been cast by the command of Pilate, surrounded the city of His accusers, and as the lions had done to the accusers of Daniel, tore all before them in pieces, and destroyed the city to the ground.