Instead of full of eyes,' some would render b+431, `colours,' referring it to the fugitive opalescent re flected tints which fell about them, and asking what was the use of these eyes when the faces looked every way, or how on feathers there could be room for the sensorimn, optic nerve, etc. (Tay lor's Calmet, Fr. cliff. cclxxxiii.) It is superfluous to observe that the question is decided at once by -yektopra 4580.4p, in Rev. iv. 6, and we only men tion it to shew the absurdities necessarily involved in these heavy attempts to reduce the rapture of a prophetic ecstasy into shapes of anatomical pre cision. Such matter of fact criticisms of glowing poetic imaginations are radically erroneous, as all attempts are which confuse rhetoric with logic. The fact that even a Raphael (in his vision of Eze kiel) fails to give any satisfactory picture of the marvellous image, suffices to prove the inadequacy of the highest* art to attain the sublime heights of the poet's inspired imagination. A curious resem blance has been pointed out between the general features of the molten sea in Solomon's temple, and this compound image (Vitringa, Observatt. Sacr. IV. i. sec. 17, sq.) ; nor is it strange, considering how often this imposing object must have been seen by Ezekiel in his boyhood, and how strong a hold every ornament of that beloved temple took on his pnestly and devout imagination.
It was professedly in vision that Ezekiel saw the cherubim (Kimchi on Ezek. x. 8), and it is idle to attribute objective reality to the imagery of a dream. Who has thought of inquiring whether the ladder of Jacob or the great sheet of St. Peter were actual and material things ? The ideal truths thus revealed to the prophet were necessarily translated into the forms of his finite understanding, and were thus permeated by his own individuality, and coloured by the cir cumstances of his life. The cherubim of this Apo calypse were so moulded by the workings of his high imagination, that he did not at first recognise the old Mosaic symbol in these mysterious beings who formed for the Divine Being at once a living chariot and a lightning throne. We shall after wards explain the chief details of the composition which recur in the living creatures' of the Revela tion of St. John (Rev. iv. 6--1 t ; v. 8), where the rendering of Ma by beasts' is the most unfortu nate in the whole English version. It should be rendered Immortalities,' and they differ from the cherubim of Ezekiel in having six wings instead of four, in speaking and giving praise instead of keep ing an awful silence, and in being single instead of quadriform. We have, however, already seen that even in Ezekiel there is a perpetual variation be tween one single tetramorphic being, and the four fold-visaged four.' We are then, from a review of all these pas sages, entitled to infer that although the complete symbol of the cherubim was composed of four se parate or united forms of life, they might be suffi ciently indicated by-any one of these four elements, and that the shape in which they were commonly re presented was either that of a winged ox (perhaps with a human head), or of a winged man (perhaps with calves' feet). The final argument, which to our minds gives preponderance to the former view, is the overwhelming amount of proof which tends to shew that Aaron in the wilderness, and Jero boam at Dan and Bethel, intended by the figures, which in Scripture are contemptuously called calves, to establish for the materialising vulgar unconcealed cherubic emblems, not as involving a new cultus, like Baal-worship or Apis-worship, but to give popular expression to the worship of Je hovah (see Exod. xxxii. 5; 1 Kings xii. 28). This fact is a strong corroboration of the conclusions at which we have inductively arrived, but its further development belongs to another place (sec Mon emus de Vitals Aureo, Critici Sacri, vol. ix. Bo chart, Hieroz. ii. 34, 41, and CALF). It only re mains to add, that a prevailingly animal form in the cherubim may well have originated the strange calumny (above alluded to) that the Jews and Christians worshipped the figure of an ass (Joseph. c. II. p. 475 ; Tac. Hist. v. 4 ; Diodor.
Fragni. Lib. xxxiv. and 40, apeov Iv az).14 AiOipov dyaXi.ca dvbpes br' Tert. Apol. 16 ad Watt. i. 14 ; Epiphan. de Hares. xxvi. to Min. Fel. Oct. ix.) We know that the Jews and Christians were, till the war of Bar chocebas, constantly confounded together, and among many conjectures we can find no more probable origin for this inepta persuasio.' IL Having thus determined approximately the shape of the symbol, we proceed to consider what it was intended to represent, what were the cheru bim supposed to be ? About the answer to this question there need be no doubt ; they were in tended to represent divine existences in immediate contact with Jehovah. This was the view of Chrysostom, Athanasius, Ambrose, Augustine, and the Fathers generally (Sixt. Senensis, Bibl. p. 348), and the Pseudo Dionysius places them second (between seraphim and thrones) in the nine orders of the celestial hierarchy (Dion. Areop. de Calest. Hier. 5-9). The Kabbalists, on the other hand, placed them ninth in their ten choirs of spirits (Buddxus, Philos. Heir., p. 415). The nature of the passages in which they occur—pas sages poetical and highly-wrought ; the existence of exactly similar images among other nations, and the purely symbolic character of their form, has led, not only Jewish allegorists like Philo, and Christian philosophers like Clemens of Alexandria, but even such writers as Hengstenberg, Keil, Neu mann, etc., to deny them any personal reality, and in this way we may explain Zullich's definition of them as ' mythical servants of Jehovah' (Die Cherubim-Wager, Heidelb. 1832). Thus, in the vision of Ezekiel, it is obvious that their animal shape and position implies subjection to the Al mighty ; that the four heads, uniting what were, according to the Jewish proverb, the four highest things in the world (Schoettgen's Hor. Heir. ad Rev. iv.)—viz., the lion among beasts, the ox among cattle, the eagle among birds, and man among all, while God is the highest of all,—con stitute them the representative and quintessence of creation, placed in subordination to the great Creator (Leyrer, inn Zellers Wbrterb. s.v.) The heads, too, represent not only creatures, perfect after their kind, but also perfect qualities, as love, constancy, magnanimity, sublimity, the free consciousness of man, the strong courage of the lion, the enduring strength of the ox, the rapid flight of the eagle (Hoffman) ; and possibly the number four may indicate the universe as coin posed of four elements or four quarters. The four traditional (?) standards of the quadrilateral Israelite encampment (Num. ii.), the lion of Judah, the man of Reuben, the eagle of Dan, the ox of Ephraim, are far too uncertain to be relied upon. Their eyes represent universal knowledge and in sight (cf. Ov. Ma'am. i. 624, and the similar symbol of the Phmnician god Taut, mentioned by Sarchoniatho, ap. Euseb. Prop. Evang. x. p. 39), for they are the eyes of the Lord, which run to and fro through the whole earth (Zech. iv. to). The wings imply speed and ubiquity ; the wheels are necessary for the throne-chariot, itself a perfect and royal emblem, and so used by other nations (Chrysost. Orat. xxxv. 1) ; and the straight feet imply the fiery gliding and lightning-like flash of their divine motion (cf. We purposely avoid the error of pressing the minor particulars, such as those suggested by Clemens Alexandrinus, when he supposes that the twelve wings hint at the twelve signs of the Zodiac (Stromata, V. cap. vi. sec. 37, p. 240, ed. Sylb.) Thus explained, they become a striking hieroglyphic of the dazzling con summate beauty of universal creation, emanating from and subjected to the Divine Creator, whose attributes are reflected in his works. And thus, too, it becomes more than ever obvious that we are dealing with an allegory, and the most learned of the Christian fathers is right when he distinctly asserts off ion TO brio-UvOeav Tt Fat aiaOr7 rba Pov Ev obpavc3 Woe rips gxou, /6,43oXov I' K. r. A; a symbol, he proceeds, speaking of the Mosaic cherubim, the face of reason, the wings of Liturgies and Energies, the voice of thankful glory in ceaseless theoria.