Thorns and Thistles Shall It Bring Forth: The Curse on the Ground and the Crown of Thorns
Old Testament: Genesis 3:17-19
And to Adam he said: Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat, cursed is the earth in thy work; with labour and toil shalt thou eat thereof all the days of thy life. Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herbs of the earth. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return to the earth, out of which thou wast taken: for dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return.
Old Testament, also: Isaias 55:12-13
For you shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall sing praise before you, and all the trees of the country shall clap their hands. Instead of the shrub, shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the nettle, shall come up the myrtle tree: and the Lord shall be named for an everlasting sign, that shall not be taken away.
New Testament: Matthew 27:28-30; John 19:5
And stripping him, they put a scarlet cloak about him. And platting a crown of thorns, they put it upon his head, and a reed in his right hand. And bowing the knee before him, they mocked him, saying: Hail, king of the Jews. And spitting upon him, they took the reed, and struck his head. ... (Jesus therefore came forth, bearing the crown of thorns and the purple garment.) And he saith to them: Behold the Man.
The connection
When Adam sinned, the ground was cursed for his sake: "cursed is the earth in thy work ... Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee", and he would eat bread in the sweat of his face until he returned to the dust (Genesis 3:17-19). Thorns are the first fruit of the curse, the sign that the earth given to man as a garden now resists him. In the praetorium the soldiers plaited a crown out of thorns and pressed it on the head of Jesus, put a reed in His hand, knelt and mocked Him, "Hail, king of the Jews" (Matthew 27:29). Then Pilate brought Him out wearing it and said, "Behold the Man" (John 19:5). The soldiers meant it as a joke about a king. The Evangelists set down what it was: the Man, the new Adam, wearing on His head the harvest of the first Adam's sin. The sweat of Adam's face becomes the sweat of blood in the garden, and the thorns of Adam's field become His crown. The Fathers read it this way without hesitation. St Jerome says, "by the crown of thorns He takes away the ancient curse." Origen notes that the Gospels tell us the soldiers took off the cloak but not the crown, "so that there are now no longer those ancient thorns of ours, since Jesus has taken them from us upon His revered head." St Bede says the crown signifies "the taking of our sins upon Him, the thorns which the earth of our body brings forth." St Paul gives the principle: "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us" (Galatians 3:13). The Catechism says of His kingship that its true meaning "is revealed only when he is raised high on the cross" (CCC 440).
Moral sense
Thorns grow on their own; nobody plants them. So do the sins that choke a soul: the cares and riches and pleasures of this life that the Lord says choke the seed. We would rather not look at them, and the soldiers in the praetorium did not look at what they were doing either. But Christ took the thorns willingly and wore them in public, so that nobody need pretend any longer that his own field is clean. Behold the Man: this is what our sins look like when they are pressed into the head of Innocence. To meditate on the Crowning is to learn contempt for the world's crowns, its honours, its mockery, its opinion, and to bear being laughed at for the sake of the King who was laughed at first. And the thorns in our own lives, the toil and frustration of work that resists us, can be offered with His, until the curse becomes the way of the Cross.
Anagogical sense
The curse said that man would return to the dust. The crown of thorns went down into death with Him, and rose as a crown of glory: "we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour" (Hebrews 2:9). The prophet had promised that in the day of the Lord, "instead of the nettle, shall come up the myrtle tree" (Isaias 55:13), and in the new creation there is no more curse at all (Apocalypse 22:3). The ground that bore thorns for Adam will be the new earth, and the head that bore the thorns will wear the many diadems of the King of kings.
The Fathers
St Jerome, in the Catena Aurea on Matthew 27:27-30: "by the crown of thorns He takes away the ancient curse." Origen, in the Catena Aurea on Matthew 27:31-34: "so that there are now no longer those ancient thorns of ours, since Jesus has taken them from us upon His revered head." St Bede, in the Catena Aurea on John 19:1-5: "by the crown of thorns is signified the taking of our sins upon Him, the thorns which the earth of our body brings forth."
Warrant
Patristic because the Gospels do not mention Genesis at the crowning; St Jerome, Origen and St Bede, all in the Catena Aurea (on Matthew 27:27-30 and 31-34, and John 19:1-5), read the thorns as the curse and our sins taken away. The word is the same in the Greek: the Septuagint of Genesis 3:18 has akanthas kai tribolous, and Matthew 27:29 and John 19:2 have a crown ex akanthon, and John 19:5 the adjective made from it, ton akanthinon stephanon. The same pair akanthas kai tribolous is used in Hebrews 6:8 of ground that is near to a curse. The ram caught among the briers (Genesis 22:13) is left to the entry on Isaac, where it belongs. Origen's remark on the crown not being removed is an argument from the Gospels' silence and is kept as his, not as the text's.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 440.
The verses
Genesis 3:17 · Genesis 3:18 · Genesis 3:19 · Isaias 55:12 · Isaias 55:13 · Matthew 27:28 · Matthew 27:29 · Matthew 27:30 · John 19:5
