LAMB. - Born of the ram and the ewe, whose symbolism presents itself so immediately to the mind no, morning and evening, called 'olat ha-tāmīd (Num. 28, 6. 10. 15. 23 ff.; Vulg. holocaustum iuge or sempiternum) and simply tāmīd in later Judaism (Dan. 8, 11-13; 11, 31; Mishnah); this rite is prescribed in Ex. 29, 38-42 and Num. 28, 3-4. 6. 8. As in these passages, hēbhes is often accompanied by the qualification ben-šanāh "[son] of a year": that is, more than 7 days old (Ex. 22, 30; Lev. 22, 27) and not more than a year. The lamb had to be, moreover, for the holocaust, tāmīm "perfect" or without blemish (Septuagint ἀμωμος, Vulg. immaculatus): Lev. 1, 3; 3, 6; Num. 28-29: 15 times; cf. Lev. 4, 3-32; 5, 15. 18). This appellation tāmīm ("immaculate": cf. 1 Pt. 1, 19) is also found at Ugarit (mtum tm; Syria 10 [1929], pl. 61, no. 1).
The law specifies the rite of the lamb offered in sacrifice human, to express innocence, gentleness, docility, which finds wide use in all languages and in all literatures. In the East the lamb was killed not only for human nourishment, but also for the sacrifices of worship. Therefore the lamb, which in the Old Testament is closely associated with the sacrificial economy, becomes in the New Testament (especially in the Johannine writings) the image of Jesus the Redeemer, as well as a symbol of the faithful of his flock.
1. LAMB IN THE BIBLE
In the Bible the lamb is often mentioned, as the customary victim of sacrifices.
The proper Hebrew term is hēbhes (Septuagint ἀμνός) with the feminine kibhsāh (ἀμνός, Vulg. agna; Num. 6, 14), or more rarely kēsebh and kisbāh (metathesis). The smallest lamb is called taleh (I Sam. 7, 9; Is. 40, 11), Gr. ἀρήν. Kar is the male lamb fairly developed, not yet a ram, considered a choice food (Deut. 32, 14; Am. 6, 4), coveted booty (I Sam. 15, 9), and is the tribute paid by Moab (Is. 16, 1; II Reg. 3, 4: Meša). Less precise is seh (head of small livestock, forming part of the sōn "flock") which designates a lamb or a kid (Deut. 14, 4: Heb. "a seh of lambs and a seh of goats"); the Septuagint (and Vulg.) usually understand "lamb" (40 times; only once "kid"). Kēbhes occurs 87 times in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, in passages attributed to the "priestly code," in connection with sacrifices.
Among these is distinguished the double daily holocaust-
"peace offering" (Lev. 3, 7-11) and "for sin" (Lev. 4, 32 [hēbhes: Vulg. de pecoribus]. 35). On all feasts and for almost every kind of sacrifice (v.) the Mosaic Law prescribed the immolation of lambs (cf. Gen. 4, 3-4; Num. 6, 12; I Sam. 7, 9; I Reg. 8, 63, where the generic term sōn is used: 120,000; etc.). In the tāmīd of the Sabbath, the lambs were 2 in the morning and 2 in the evening (Num. 28, 9 ff.). Other holocausts of "perfect" lambs were prescribed: 7 at the new moons, 7 besides the tāmīd on each day of the paschal week (Num. 28, 11. 19-24); 7 at the new year (Num. 29, 2-4), 9 in all at Pentecost (Lev. 23, 18 ff.; Num. 28, 27), 7 besides the tāmīd on the Day of Atonement (Num. 29, 8-11); at Tabernacles the daily number rose to 14, but only 7 on the eighth day (Num.
29, 13-36). Other sacrifices of lambs were enjoined on the purified woman after childbirth (Lev. 12, 6-8) and on the man healed of leprosy (Lev. 14, 16-24: two lambs and a ewe lamb). Each year the obligatory official worship, on behalf of the nation, required the immolation of 1093 lambs (or kids), besides those offered in private sacrifices. Most preferred the lamb, more prized and more expressive, but in many sacrifices a kid could be substituted for it, no longer white. Thus for the paschal lamb (cf. II Par. 35, 7): "Your lamb (seh) must be perfect (tāmīm)... take it from the lambs (hēbhāsīm) or from the goats" (Ex. 12, 5, the Vulgate iuxta quem ritum tolletis et haedum is inexact; cf. Deut. 14, 4).
The paschal lamb (v. PASQUA), ordained by God at the exodus from Egypt (Ex. 12, 2-11; Num. 9, 2-14; Deut. 16, 1-7) preserved by its blood, with which the doors were smeared ("as a sign") (Ex. 12, 7. 13. 22 ff.; the whole house was thus consecrated as an altar), the families of Israel from the slaughter of the firstborn. Male and perfect (tāmīm, v. 5; as for holocausts: Lev. 1, 3), it was immolated by the father of the family (later by the Levites Esd. 6, 20; II Par. 30, 17; 35, 6) in the court of the sanctuary on the 14th of the 1st month (nīsān) in the evening, and its blood was poured (after the erection of the sanctuary) at the foot of the altar. Then it was consumed roasted (stretched on two pieces of wood that formed a cross, without breaking its bones Ex. 12, 46; Num. 9, 12; cf. Io. 19,
36), in groups of ten to twenty, and nothing was to remain (the leftovers were burned).
Flavius Josephus relates (Bell. Iud., VI, 9, 4) that, before the destruction of the second Temple, 256,500 lambs were immolated in one Passover; but already W. M. De Wette noted the exaggeration of this figure (Lehrb. der hebr.-jud. Archäologie, 1814, 4th ed. 1864, § 218). The Babylonian Talmûd (Pésahm 64 b) goes so far as to number them (for the same period) at 1,200,000.
The paschal lamb was a true sacrifice: it is called zébhah (Septuagint θωία; Ex. 12, 27; 23, 18; 34, 25) or qorbân (Num. 9, 7, 13) with the verb hiqrib, technical terms for expressing sacrifices. The sacrificial character also emerges from the expression pésah lê-Jahweh "passover sacred to J." (Ex. 12, 11, 48; Lev. 23, 5; Num. 9, 10, 14; Deut. 16, 1 ff.; II Par. 30, 1, 5; etc.), and from the rite of the blood poured by the priest at the foot of the altar of holocausts (Lev. 17, 3-6; II Par. 30, 16; 35, 11). Therefore Philo (Vita Mos. 3) and Flavius Josephus (Antiq. Iud. II, 14, 6; 11, 4, 8; Bell. Iud. VI, 9, 3) call the paschal lamb θωία and θωία (cf. θωία in Mc. 14, 12; Lc. 22, 7; I Cor. 5, 7). But it is impossible to reduce this sacrifice (v.) to one of the common categories of the Mosaic Law; it was at once expiatory and "peace" offering (F. X. Kortleitner, Archaeol. Biblica, Innsbruck 1917, pp. 264-66).
Because it was a sacrifice, the paschal lamb had to be killed in Jerusalem, and the rite ceased in Judaism with the destruction of the Temple. Today the father of the family, in place of the lamb, gives the afiqómen (v.), which he lifts saying, before distributing it: Zéher lqorbân pésah ("remembrance for the paschal sacrifice").
A creature so familiar furnished various images to the biblical writers. The frisking of lambs in spring figures the exultation of Israel freed from Egypt (Sap. 19, 9) with which inanimate nature is associated (Ps. 113 [114], 4, 6; cf. Mal. 4, 2 [Hebr. 3, 20]: the calves).
Timid and innocent, with a normally white fleece, "without blemish" (tâmîm) as the ritual requires, the lamb is in the Bible, as in other literatures, a symbol of innocence and gentleness, in opposition to cunning and violence. It is the opposite of the wolf (Eccl. 13, 21 [Hebr. 17a]; cf. Mt. 10, 16; cf. Horace, Epod. IV, 1; Phaedrus, etc.). The cessation of this instinctive opposition will characterize the messianic age (Is. 11, 6; cf. 65, 25). Weak, inexperienced and in need of guidance and protection (cf. Nathan's apologue II Sam. 12, 3-4), the lamb requires as its correlative the shepherd (cf. Dante, Par. IX, 131 ff.; X, 94; XXIX, 106). The Messiah will be a shepherd solicitous for men, a flock without a guide (cf. Mt. 9, 36; Mc. 6, 34; I Pt. 2, 25; Num. 27, 17), he will be the Good Shepherd (Io. 10, 2-16; cf. Lc. 15, 4-6; Mt. 12, 12; 18, 11 ff.) who entrusts his lambs to Peter (Io. 21, 15; τὰ ἀρνία μου).
The just man, simple and upright, who does not suspect snares and betrayals, persecuted by cunning enemies, is "like a harmless lamb (bébhes) dragged to the slaughter" (Ier. 11, 19). The image characterizes the suffering and most patient "servant of Jahweh," "a lamb (seh) led to the slaughter and silent" (Is. 53, 7).
In the Jewish apocrypha the biblical allegory of the lambs (= the faithful) under the Shepherd (= God) persists: Enoch 83-90; Ps. Salom. 8, 14 ff. But it seems due to the influence of the Lamb-Redeemer in the Testamenta XII Patriarch.: "From Judah and Levi there shall arise for you the lamb of God (ὁ ἀμνὸς τοῦ Θεοῦ) who saves the nations by grace" (Test. Ioseph 19).
sia. The Baptist gives messianic and soteriological value to the formula (cf. Jn. 1:30-34), which alludes to the twofold lamb sacrificed daily in the Temple, and especially to the paschal lamb whose immolation was to take place shortly thereafter (Jn. 2:13), and to the expiatory sacrifice of the "servant of Yahweh" (Is. 53:7; cf. Acts 8:32). The Evangelist gives the greatest prominence to Jesus' paschal rite (Jn. 13:1-3, 31-33; cf. 18:28) and then goes on to emphasize the realization in him of the type of the paschal lamb (Jn. 19:33-36). The figure, expressing moral purification from sin through immolation, applied to Jesus as a characteristic appellation, rests on natural symbolism (founded on the qualities of the animal) and at the same time on positive symbolism (deriving from the Old Testament, which links the idea of holocaust with the lamb, and of liberation and salvation with the paschal lamb).
The Evangelist John handed down to us the evocative title of the Savior, which he learned "from the beginning" at the moment of his vocation (Jn. 1:36; cf. 1 Jn. 1:1; 2:24), and made it the scenic pivot of the Apocalypse, where the living symbol of the Lamb (= Jesus) occurs 28 times (always τὸ ἀρνίον). It has been argued (C. F. Burney, followed in part by I. Rohr, Der Hebräerbrief u. die geh. Offenbarung des hl. Joh., 4th ed., Bonn 1932, p. 92) that τὸ ἀρνίον corresponds to the Aramaic taliō, equivocal between the sense of "young man" and that of "lamb." But John "sees" Jesus as the Lamb. The figure dominates the whole Apocalypse from 5:6 ("a Lamb... as if slain") onward. The immolated and victorious Lamb is the link between the two supreme salvific events: the Redemption accomplished and the final Judgment; the Lamb carries the first with him and exercises the second. Heaven and earth look to the Lamb: he reigns in heaven (5:6; 7:17; 21:1, 3) and on the mountain (14:1), he is the temple and luminary of heaven (21:22, 24), and the saints, saved by his blood (7:14; 12:11), share in the banquet of his wedding (19:7, 9; 21:9). Simple and gentle, the Lamb fights and triumphs against the cunning and powerful Beast (the Antichrist is an anti-lamb: 13:11) and wins with his saints (12:11; 17:14), who are themselves immaculate (ἄμωμος: 14:5).
The Synoptics are silent on the symbol Lamb = Jesus, which returns only in 1 Pt. 1:19 ("Christ, an immaculate [*ἄμωμος] and undefiled lamb, has redeemed us with his precious blood"). St. Paul (1 Cor. 5:7) sees Jesus prefigured in the paschal lamb. This typical sense of the paschal lamb is then affirmed by the whole tradition: St. Justin (C. Tryph.* 40, 111 [cites
(Int. Alinari)
Is. 53:7]; PG 6, 561, 732), Tertullian (Adv. Marcion. 4, 40 [cites Is. 53:7]; 5, 7; PL 2, 490 f. and 518), Origen (Hom. 2 in Lev.; Hom. 23 in Num.; Hom. 12 in Jer.; In Io. tom. 10, 11-13; PG 12, 421, 752; 13, 396; 14, 328-40; Tract. de libris SS. Scripturarum, ed. P. Batiffol, Paris 1900, pp. 96-103), St. Cyprian (Ad Demetrianum 22: PL 4, 580), and Lactantius, St. Jerome, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, St. Cyril of Alexandria, St. Leo the Great, St. Gregory the Great, St. Thomas (Sum. Theol. 1a-2a, q. 102, a. 5 ad 2; 3a, q. 73, a. 6: the most expressive figure of the Eucharist in the Old Testament).
Among Catholics M.-F. Lagrange, followed by F. Ceuppens, denies that the appellation "lamb of God" implies, on the lips of the Baptist, an expiatory death, because such a concept would have been unknown to him and to his hearers. But the generality of believing exegetes (among recent ones F. S. Porporato and A. Médebielle) vindicates this meaning, clearly perceived by the whole Catholic tradition.
The Fathers generally and expressly bring together and unify the type of the paschal lamb, "the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world," and the oracle of Is. 53:7 (Origen, In Io. tom. 10, 13; PG 14, 336). And they depict Jesus as the "lamb of God," that is, the purest and gentlest victim who immolates himself to save sinful men: Origen (In Io. tom. 6, 32-35; PG 14, 289-93), Eusebius (Demonstr. Evang., 10; PG 22, 717), St. Augustine (In Io. tr. 4, 10-11; tr. 7, 5-6 ["sanguine agni victus est leo"]; tr. 120, 3; PL 35, 1410, 1439 f., 1953), St. John Chrysostom (In Io. hom. 17, 1; PG 59, 109), St. Cyril of Alexandria (In Io. 2; PG 73, 192). Dante (cf. Par. XVII, 33) applies the title "lamb of God" to the Emperor (Epist. VII, to Henry VII), whom he invokes as "Redeemer."
Theological speculation has drawn from the symbol notable conclusions for the dogma of the Redemption. Some non-Catholics even exaggerate, such as S. N. Bulgakov (L'Agneau de Dieu. Sur l'humanité divine, Paris 1933).
Christian figurative art presents Jesus as the Lamb, drawing mainly on Apoc. 5:6-14 and 7:9-17.
The Catholic liturgy, especially in Paschal time, has frequent allusions to the paschal lamb. The appellation "lamb of God" is referred to Jesus in liturgical language from the earliest centuries to signify the immaculate victim for the redemption of the world. Thus in the Mass of the Roman rite, in the Gloria and after the fraction of the host, and when the priest before Communion shows the Lord in the host to the faithful. Thus in the liturgies of St. John Chrysostom, after the lavabo, while the priest thrusts the lance into the right side of the seal and when he makes the sign of the cross over the bread; when he cuts the bread into four parts, after the adoration (cf. Liturgia s. Joh. Chris., Venice 1687, p. 433). In the liturgy of St. Mark, the appellation occurs in the third prayer of the kiss of peace and in the adoration at the bowing of the head (Missale Alex. s. Marci, edition of Gius. L. Assemani, Rome 1754, pp. 53, 71).
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2. CHRISTIAN ARCHAEOLOGY
The lamb is often mentioned, together with the sheep, by Jesus Christ in the Gospel, to indicate figuratively the flock of the good shepherd, that is, his faithful; where it is difficult to want to maintain the distinction of sheep in the meaning of apostles and bishops, from lambs in the meaning of simple faithful. Such is also the sense of the sheep and the lambs that paleochristian art from the end of the 2nd century places beside the mystic shepherd, to represent both the Church militant and the Church triumphant.
But more exquisite and fruitful was the symbolism of the lamb applied to Christ, already in the Old Testament figured in the paschal lamb and expressly described as such by Isaiah, especially in the apocalyptic transfiguration of the agnus stans tanquam occisus before the throne of God, qui occisus est et redemit nos Deo in sanguine suo (Apoc. 5). This conception found great use in Christian art from the 4th century onward, both in the cemetery sculpture of the sarcophagi and in the more solemn biblical compositions in mosaic or painting. In this same art the lambs (generally twelve) that move toward Jesus signify the apostles or even all the faithful. Singular is the case of the sarcophagus of Junius Bassus (v.), where on the extrados of the arches of the lower zone the craftsman carved six biblical compositions in which both Jesus and the other figures are represented by lambs. The Trullan Council of 692 recommended replacing the representation of Jesus himself with that of the lamb with a nimbus or cross on the mount or on the throne; but it was not heeded, at least in the West. Finally, it should not be forgotten that sometimes on funerary slabs the lamb is a simple allusion to the name of the deceased (for example, of a Probata, the lamb being called in Greek πρόβατον), or to his tender and innocent age. For the paschal lamb v. PASQUA. - See Pl. XXXII.
