The Aberdeen Bestiary

The night owl, translation from The Aberdeen Bestiary, more to be found at http://www.abdn.ac.uk/bestiary/index.hti

Of the night-owl

'I am like the night-owl in its dwelling-place' (BSV, Psalmi, 101:7; NEB, Psalms, 102:6). The night-owl is a bird that loves the darkness of the night. It lives in decaying walls because it sets up house in the ruins of roofless dwellings. It shuns the light, flying at night in search of food.

In a mystic sense, the night-owl signifies Christ. Christ loves the darkness of night because he does not want sinners - who are represented by darkness - to die but to be converted and live (see Ezekiel, 18:32). For God the father so loved the world that he gave his son to death for the redemption of the world (see John, 3:16-17). That sinners are called 'darkness', is borne out by the apostle, saying: 'For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord' (Ephesians, 5:8).

The night-owl lives in the cracks in walls, as Christ wished to be born one of the Jewish people, saying: 'I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel' (Matthew, 15:24). But Christ is crushed in the cracks of the walls, because he is killed by the Jews.

Christ shuns the light in the sense that he detests and hates vainglory. For when he cared for a leper, in order to give us a lesson in humility,