Church Fathers and Mother Hen: Patristic Views on Jesus’ Chicken Saying

Abstract In his lament over Jerusalem, Jesus compares himself to a chicken: “How often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings! But you were unwilling.” (Matt 23:37/Luke 13:34). Early church commentators drew on this text in a number of ways. Some remove the motif of failure and have Christ gather Christian believers instead of Jews. Others even have God explicitly rejecting the Jews because of their supposed unwillingness to be gathered. Still others point to the hen as an appropriate female and non-human representation of Christ, even as a symbol of the incarnation. The verse also appears in debates as to whether God has wings and whether humanity was therefore originally designed to have wings. Finally, for some the Christ-like chicken comes to sacrifice her life for her chicks. The writings of the Church Fathers attest to a variety of interpretational options concerning the animal, its gender, its young, its wings, and its behaviour. The early reception history of the saying reveals its use in pastoral contexts, in anti-Jewish polemics, in incarnational imagery, in anthropological reasoning, and as a soteriological metaphor.