ChristStory Bestiary

MONKEY

DEGRADED OR FOOLISH MAN

The amusing antics of monkeys make them a symbol of mimicry, agility, buffoonery, cunning, satire, and the unconscious. It is said that they conceal their sage-like wisdom and magical powers with their humorous antics. Although monkeys are believed to understand human speech, the orangutan is thought to be wise enough to keep his mouth shut. In the Far East, monkeys mock the vanity of human wisdom with poses indicating that spiritual detachment from earthy things the enlightened ones are believed to enjoy. The popular image of the three wise monkeys portrays the ability of the disciplined mind to avoid evil. One of these monkeys covers his eyes in order to see no evil. Another covers his mouth so that he speaks no evil. And a third covers his ears so that he hears no evil.

The monkey also symbolizes the accidental hero or one who acting instinctively manages to save or destroy the day. Like the leprechaun and the unconscious mind, he can be helpful and lucky one minute and malevolent and dangerous the next. In any case, since he is acting entirely on instinct, the consequences will be very good or very bad and without rhyme or reason. In China and Japan, it is hoped that the consequences will be good and monkey dolls are given to children and pregnant women to protect them from evil spirits and to ease the pains of childbirth.

In Egypt and South America, the deceased soul was expected to undergo various trials by monkeys on their way to the afterlife. These included being hunted by monkeys with nets and being tickled by a monkey with sharp claws. In South America, the monkey was also believed to be a cunning tempter luring humans into shameful behavior in order to display his superiority over them.

In Christian art and literature, the monkey and the ape are symbols of degraded humanity. They symbolize humans distorted by the sins of malice, greed, lust, vanity, sloth, drunkenness, conceit, obscenity, and lechery, along with spiritual blindness, filth, and ugliness. They represent sinners ensnared and blinded by the devil through their desire to imitate him just as a monkey imitates the hunter who pretends to rub glue in his own eyes. A monkey with an apple in his mouth portrays the Fall of Man. When defeated by faith and virtue, both the power of sin and the devil are portrayed as apes bound in chains.

In India, monkeys symbolize strength, cunning, courage, loyalty, self-sacrifice, and the soul. They are thought to be kind to humans. The monkey-god Hanuman is believed to make barren women fertile.

Ancient Egyptians also esteemed the monkey, particularly the baboon whose morning screeches were believed to be prayers to the sun god rising in the sky. Thoth, the Egyptian god of wisdom and scribe of the gods was depicted as a dog-faced baboon and was thought to be as quarrelsome and lecherous as he was wise.

Among the Aztecs and the Maya, the monkey was an emblem of the blacksmith, the sun, the night sky, sexual desire, and the sensible, hardworking man. The "Prince of the Flowers" was a monkey and presided over music and dancing.

Long before Darwin came up with his theories, the monkey was respected as an ancestor in parts of China and Tibet. Some families believed themselves to be the offspring of women who had been abducted and impregnated by apes. In Tibet, the tale is told of the marriage between a monkey named Mani bka' bum and the She-Devil of the Rocks. Their union produced six half-humans whose hair and tails fell off so that they became the first people. Zeus was said to have turned a band of highway robbers into monkeys because they lured travelers into their clutches with their jocular monkey-like ways.

The monkey is also associated with rain and in some areas hunting monkeys is thought to bring on rain. In Solomon's day, monkeys and apes were imported into Israel as a luxury item (1Ki 10:22; 2 Chr 9:21).

There is a Filipino folktale called The Monkey Prince which bears a great deal of similarity to The Frog Prince. According to this story, a handsome prince fell madly in love with the daughter of his father's fiercest enemy, the witch of the forest. For many years he remained faithful to his secret lover, refusing to marry any other. But eventually the king forced him to marry one of the women of the kingdom. Enraged at the prince's marriage, his secret lover turned him into a monkey on his wedding day. She also turned the city into a forest. Her spell was to last for 500 years; at the end of which, the prince must win the love of a maiden. In the 400th year of the spell, settlers came to the forest and began building a new city on the site of the sleeping one. The monkey prince, seeing his chance to win the love of a maiden and break the spell, began kidnapping the young women. Unfortunately, instead of falling in love with him, they died of fright. Then, in the 500th year, the monkey prince kidnapped a girl who, after several days, fell in love with him. Thus the spell was broken. The monkey turned back into a handsome prince and the sleeping city came to life.

Unless otherwise indicated all scripture quotes are from the NKJV Bible.