In Christian theology, and in its seventeenth-century reception, the griffin is read above all as a christological allegory of Christ’s dual nature — with, in the background, a possible negative reading tied to its hybrid, monstrous form.
Christ’s dual nature
The lion represents Christ as “king of the earth,” rooted in humanity, while the eagle points to divinity, raised toward heaven; the griffin thus unites, in a single being, earth and heaven, humanity and divinity. Some theologians present it explicitly as a visual summary of Chalcedonian doctrine: two natures united without confusion.
Saving power and vigilance
The griffin combines the attributes of royalty (the lion, king of beasts) and of heaven (the eagle, king of the skies), yielding an image of Christ’s total lordship over creation. Its traditional role as guardian of treasure is easily reinterpreted: guardian of the treasury of faith, of the Church, of the sacraments, even of the souls entrusted to Christ.
The demon/Christ ambivalence
Because it is hybrid, the griffin can also be seen as a figure of disorder and of the demon, corrupting the nobility of both lion and eagle. This tension feeds a dialectical reading: the same motif can figure either the untamed force of Satan or the unifying power of Christ.
The seventeenth-century context
The great dogmatic treatises say little of the griffin directly; its symbolism circulates instead through preaching, through iconography — tympana, stained glass, sculpture — and through collections of symbols inherited from the bestiaries. For the learned, steeped in this culture, a creature that “unites without confusing” two orders calls to mind at once the doctrine of Christ’s two natures.