Man as Christ to the Animals

The old picture of the brutes sporting before Adam and fawning upon him may not be wholly symbolical. Even now more animals than you might expect are ready to adore man if they are given a reasonable opportunity: for man was made to be the priest and even, in one sense, the Christ, of the animals–the mediator through whom they apprehend so much of the Divine splendour as their irrational nature allows.

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The Problem of Pain (New York: Macmillian Publishing Co., Inc., 1962), 78.