A wolf in sheep's clothing is an idiom of Biblical origin used to describe those playing a role contrary to their real character with whom contact is dangerous, particularly false teachers. Much later, the idiom has been applied by zoologists to varying kinds of predatory behaviour. A fable based on it has been falsely credited to
Aesop
Aesop ( or ; , ; c. 620–564 BCE) was a Greek fabulist and storyteller credited with a number of fables now collectively known as ''Aesop's Fables''. Although his existence remains unclear and no writings by him survive, numerous tales cre ...
and is now numbered 451 in the
Perry Index
The Perry Index is a widely used index of "Aesop's Fables" or "Aesopica", the fables credited to Aesop, the storyteller who lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 560 BC. The index was created by Ben Edwin Perry, a professor of classics at the Un ...
. The confusion has arisen from the similarity of the theme with fables of Aesop concerning wolves that are mistakenly trusted by shepherds; the moral drawn from these is that one's basic nature eventually shows through the disguise.
Origin and variants
The phrase originates in the
Sermon on the Mount
The Sermon on the Mount (anglicized from the Matthean Vulgate Latin section title: ) is a collection of sayings attributed to Jesus of Nazareth found in the Gospel of Matthew (chapters 5, 6, and 7). that emphasizes his moral teachings. It is ...
by Jesus recorded in the Christian
New Testament
The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christ ...
: ''Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves'' (
Gospel of Matthew 7:15, King James Version). The sermon then suggests that their true nature will be revealed by their actions (''by their fruits shall ye know them'', verse 16). In the centuries following, the phrase was used many times in the Latin writings of the
Church Fathers
The Church Fathers, Early Church Fathers, Christian Fathers, or Fathers of the Church were ancient and influential Christian theologians and writers who established the intellectual and doctrinal foundations of Christianity. The historical per ...
and later on in European vernacular literature. A Latin proverb also emerged, ''Pelle sub agnina latitat mens saepe lupina'' (Under a sheep's skin often hides a wolfish mind). Although the story of a wolf disguised as a sheep has been counted as one of
Aesop's Fables
Aesop's Fables, or the Aesopica, is a collection of fables credited to Aesop, a slave and storyteller believed to have lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 564 BCE. Of diverse origins, the stories associated with his name have descended to ...
in modern times, there is no record of a fable with this precise theme before the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
, although there are earlier fables of Aesop in Greek sources to which the Gospel parable might allude.
The first fable concerning a wolf that disguises itself in a sheep's skin is told by the 12th-century Greek rhetorician Nikephoros Basilakis in a work called ''
Progymnasmata
Progymnasmata (Greek προγυμνάσματα "fore-exercises"; Latin ''praeexercitamina'') are a series of preliminary rhetorical exercises that began in ancient Greece and continued during the Roman Empire. These exercises were implemented by s ...
'' (rhetorical exercises). It is prefaced with the comment that 'You can get into trouble by wearing a disguise' and is followed by the illustrative story. 'A wolf once decided to change his nature by changing his appearance, and thus get plenty to eat. He put on a sheepskin and accompanied the flock to the pasture. The shepherd was fooled by the disguise. When night fell, the shepherd shut up the wolf in the fold with the rest of the sheep and as the fence was placed across the entrance, the sheepfold was securely closed off. But when the shepherd wanted a sheep for his supper, he took his knife and killed the wolf.' The conclusion drawn is different from the Gospel story. In the former one is warned to beware of hypocritical evil-doers; Nikephoros warns that evil-doing carries its own penalty.
![Wolf sheeps clothing barlow](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/Wolf_sheeps_clothing_barlow.jpg)
The next version does not appear until three centuries later in the ''Hecatomythium'' of the 15th-century Italian professor
Laurentius Abstemius
Laurentius Abstemius (c. 1440–1508) was an Italian writer and professor of philology, born at Macerata in Ancona. His learned name plays on his family name of Bevilaqua (Drinkwater), and he was also known by the Italian name Lorenzo Astemio. A ...
. In his telling, 'A wolf, dressed in a sheep's skin, blended himself in with the flock of sheep and every day killed one of the sheep. When the shepherd noticed this was happening, he hanged the wolf on a very tall tree. On other shepherds asking him why he had hanged a sheep, the shepherd answered: The skin is that of a sheep, but the activities were those of a wolf.' Abstemius' comment on the story follows the Biblical interpretation: 'people should be judged not by their outward demeanor but by their works, for many in sheep's clothing do the work of wolves'.
Certain elements of this story are to be found in Aesop's fable of the shepherd who raised a wolf cub among his dogs. When it was grown, it secretly reverted to type. If a wolf stole a sheep and the dogs could not catch it, the guardian wolf continued the chase and shared the meal with the marauder. On other occasions it would kill a sheep and share the meat with the other dogs. Eventually the shepherd discovered what was happening and hanged the wolf. What may be a reference to this story occurs in an anonymous poem in the
Greek Anthology
The ''Greek Anthology'' ( la, Anthologia Graeca) is a collection of poems, mostly epigrams, that span the Classical and Byzantine periods of Greek literature. Most of the material of the ''Greek Anthology'' comes from two manuscripts, the ''Pa ...
in which a goat laments that it is made to suckle a wolf-cub,
The Greek fable is numbered 267 in the Perry Index. As in the case of
The Walnut Tree
The Walnut Tree is one of Aesop's fables and numbered 250 in the Perry Index. It later served as a base for a misogynistic proverb, which encourages the violence against walnut trees, asses and women.
A fable of ingratitude
There are tw ...
, however, this would not have been the first time that Abstemius adapted one of Aesop's fables to fit a contemporary idiom, in this case that of the wolf in sheep's clothing. Though the commonest retelling of the story in English follows the version by Abstemius, it is often credited to Aesop.
Another variant fable by Aesop is number 234 in the Perry Index. This concerns a wolf that regularly comes to view the flock, but never attempts any harm. Eventually, the shepherd comes to trust it and on one occasion leaves the wolf on guard. He returns to find his flock decimated and blames himself for being taken in. In neither case is there the suggestion by Aesop that the wolf disguised itself as a sheep.
Yet another variation on the disguise theme was included in the ''Cento favole morali'' ("100 moral fables", 1570) of the Italian poet
Giovanni Maria Verdizotti
Giovanni Maria Verdizotti was a well-connected writer and artist who was born in Venice in 1525 and died there in 1600.
Life and work
As an artist, Verdizotti is mainly remembered for his friendship with Titian, whose pupil he was, and later his ...
. In this the wolf dresses itself as a shepherd, but when it tries to imitate his call, it wakes the real shepherd and his dogs. Since the wolf is encumbered by its disguise, it cannot get away and is killed. This is the version followed in
La Fontaine's Fables
Jean de La Fontaine collected fables from a wide variety of sources, both Western and Eastern, and adapted them into French free verse. They were issued under the general title of Fables in several volumes from 1668 to 1694 and are considered cla ...
(III.3). The conclusion both poets draw is the same as that of Nikephoros. The story entered the English canon under the title "The wolf turned shepherd" in
Roger L'Estrange
Sir Roger L'Estrange (17 December 1616 – 11 December 1704) was an English pamphleteer, author, courtier, and press censor. Throughout his life L'Estrange was frequently mired in controversy and acted as a staunch ideological defender of Kin ...
's 1692 fable collection and in verse as "The Wolf in Disguise" in Robert Dodsley's ''Select fables of Esop and other fabulists'' (1765).
Artistic interpretations
Earlier illustrations of the fable concentrated on the hanging of the wolf. More recently, the emphasis has been on the disguise. In France, the theme of the wolf disguised in shepherd's clothing is more common and
Gustave Doré
Paul Gustave Louis Christophe Doré ( , , ; 6 January 1832 – 23 January 1883) was a French artist, as a printmaker, illustrator, painter, comics artist, caricaturist, and sculptor. He is best known for his prolific output of wood-engraving ...
's 1868 print of the subject was later reused in the 1977 set of postage stamps from
Burundi
Burundi (, ), officially the Republic of Burundi ( rn, Repuburika y’Uburundi ; Swahili language, Swahili: ''Jamuhuri ya Burundi''; French language, French: ''République du Burundi'' ), is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley at the ...
featuring this and other fables.
A number of recent CDs are titled ''A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing'', although most are references to the idiom and the fable is not mentioned in the words of any of the songs. The same is true of many songs that have the phrase as their title. One exception is the lyric by
Tackhead
Tackhead (styled TACK>>HEAD, sometimes known as Fats Comet) is an industrial hip-hop group that was most active during the 1980s and early 1990s, and briefly reformed in 2004 for a tour. Their music occupies the territory where funk, dub, indus ...
on their 1991 CD ''Strange Things'', which uses the fable for a satirical attack on Capitalist entrepreneurs.
In zoology
Zoologists have repeatedly compared
predator
Predation is a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill th ...
y animals which make use of
aggressive mimicry
Aggressive mimicry is a form of mimicry in which predators, parasites, or parasitoids share similar signals, using a harmless model, allowing them to avoid being correctly identified by their prey or host. Zoologists have repeatedly compared t ...
to a wolf in sheep's clothing, including
jumping spiders
Jumping spiders are a group of spiders that constitute the family Salticidae. As of 2019, this family contained over 600 described genera and over 6,000 described species, making it the largest family of spiders at 13% of all species. Jumping spi ...
,
lacewings
The insect order Neuroptera, or net-winged insects, includes the lacewings, mantidflies, antlions, and their relatives. The order consists of some 6,000 species. Neuroptera can be grouped together with the Megaloptera and Raphidioptera in the ...
,
ant-mimicking aphid
Aphids are small sap-sucking insects and members of the superfamily Aphidoidea. Common names include greenfly and blackfly, although individuals within a species can vary widely in color. The group includes the fluffy white woolly aphids. A t ...
s,
hemiptera
Hemiptera (; ) is an order (biology), order of insects, commonly called true bugs, comprising over 80,000 species within groups such as the cicadas, aphids, planthoppers, leafhoppers, Reduviidae, assassin bugs, Cimex, bed bugs, and shield bugs. ...
n bugs mimicking
chrysomelid beetles,
bird-dropping spider
''Phrynarachne decipiens'', the bird-dropping spider, is a species of tropical crab spider from Malaysia and Indonesia (Sumatra and Java). It mimics a bird dropping in its appearance and the way it behaves.
Description
The bird-dropping spider i ...
s,
orchid mantises,
cichlid fish
Cichlids are fish from the family Cichlidae in the order Cichliformes. Cichlids were traditionally classed in a suborder, the Labroidei, along with the wrasses ( Labridae), in the order Perciformes, but molecular studies have contradicted this ...
,
and the
zone-tailed hawk
The zone-tailed hawk (''Buteo albonotatus'') is a medium-sized buzzard, hawk of warm, dry parts of the Americas. It is somewhat similar in plumage and flight style to a common scavenger, the turkey vulture, and may benefit from being able to blen ...
which flies with
vulture
A vulture is a bird of prey that scavenges on carrion. There are 23 extant species of vulture (including Condors). Old World vultures include 16 living species native to Europe, Africa, and Asia; New World vultures are restricted to North and ...
s;
these animals have
evolved
Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation t ...
to
deceive their prey by appearing as other prey, or like
angler fish
The anglerfish are fish of the teleost order (biology), order Lophiiformes (). They are Osteichthyes, bony fish named for their characteristic mode of predation, in which a modified luminescent Fish_fin#Ray-fins, fin ray (the esca or illicium) a ...
and
snapping turtles
The Chelydridae is a family of turtles that has seven extinct and two extant genera. The extant genera are the snapping turtles, ''Chelydra'' and '' Macrochelys''. Both are endemic to the Western Hemisphere. The extinct genera are '' Acherontemy ...
lure the prey by appearing as the prey's prey.
References
External links
Book illustrations from the 15th - 20th centuriesof "The wolf in sheep's clothing"
Book illustrations from the 17th - 19th centuriesof "The wolf as shepherd"
{{Sermon on the Mount, state=collapsed
Animal tales
Big Bad Wolf
Canines in religion
English-language idioms
Fables
Fables by Laurentius Abstemius
Wolf who played shepherd, The
Metaphors referring to sheep or goats
Metaphors referring to wolves
Sermon on the Mount
ATU 100-149