Book x

. cant. x. p. 153.

These must not, however, be confounded with the cherub and seraph of Scripture. It was a thoroughly pagan idea, borrowed from classic mythology, and unworthy of Christian Art. It soon degenerated into "earthly loves" and "cupids," or amorini as they were termed and as we now understand them.

[Illustration]

Cherubim and Seraphim of Scripture

In Ecclesiastical Art literal renderings of the descriptions contained in the Old Testament and the Apocalypse are not of unfrequent use. A more lengthened reference to these great Hebrew symbolic beings will not be considered out of place, as there is great doubt and uncertainty as to their forms.

These mystic symbolic beings were familiar to all the patriarchs--from Adam, who gazed upon them in Paradise, and against whom on his expulsion they stood with flaming sword, turning every way to bar his return--to Moses, who trembled before it on Mount Sinai; while to the Priests and Levites, the custodians of the Ark of the Covenant in the Tabernacle, the cherubim remained the sacred guardians in the Holy of Holies of the palladium of the national faith and liberties during the brightest and, as it has been termed, the most heroic period of Jewish history.

[Illustration: Angel crest of Tuite, Bart. co. Tip.]

Josephus, the more effectually to excite respect for the great Hebrew symbol in the minds of his readers, purposely throws over it the veil of obscurity. He says: "The cherubim are winged creatures, but the form of them does not resemble that of any living creature seen by man." In the works of Philo Judæus there is an express dissertation upon the cherubim. The learned Brochart and many others have attempted to elucidate the subject to little purpose. The ambiguity which always accompanies a written description of objects with which we are imperfectly acquainted applies with greater force to this mysterious being combining so many apparently conflicting attributes.

To the prophetic vision of Ezekiel, the description of which, in the opinion of competent critics, excels in grandeur of idea and energy of expression the most celebrated writers of ancient and modern times, the reader is referred, as it supplies at first hand almost all that can be known concerning the fearful form of the cherubim.

The four living creatures that support the throne of God exhibited to Ezekiel a fourfold aspect; they had each the face of _a man_, the face of _a lion_, and the face of _an ox_; they also had the face of _an eagle_. They had each four wings; they had the hands of a man under their wings. "Two wings of every one were joined one to the other, and two covered their bodies." They were accompanied by wheels which "went upon their four sides, and they turned not when they went"; "and their whole body, and their backs, and their hands, and their wings, and their wheels were full of eyes"; "and the living creatures ran and returned as the appearance of a flash of lightning." Such is a concise description of their appearance as set forth in Ezekiel (chap. i.).

"This wonderful and mysterious hieroglyph must be considered as a striking and expressive emblem of the guardian vigilance of providence, all-seeing and omniscient; while the number of wings exhibit to us direct symbols of that powerful, that all-pervading spirit which, while it darts through nature at a glance, is everywhere present to protect and defend us" (Dideron).

So attached were the Jews to this celestial symbol that when Solomon erected that stupendous temple which continued the glory and boast of the Hebrew nation for so many ages, we are told (1 Kings, vi. 29, viii. 6, 7), he carved all the walls of the house round about with the sculptured figures of the cherubim, and on each side of the ark was a cherub of gold plated upon olive wood fifteen feet high, with their faces to the light, their expanded wings embracing the whole space of the sacred enclosure, serving as a visible sign or symbol of God's immediate presence, whence the saying of David, "God sitteth between the cherubim" (Ps. xcix. 1). In this place God perpetually resided in the form of a bright cloud or shining luminous body, termed "shechinah," whence the divine oracles were audibly delivered.

Milton gives the following description of the Seraph Raphael:

"At once on the eastern cliff of Paradise He lights, and to his proper shape returns A seraph wing'd; six wings he wore to shade His lineaments divine; the pair that clad Each shoulder broad came mantling o'er his breast With regal ornament: the middle pair Girt like a starry zone his waist, and round Skirted his loins and thighs with downy gold And colours dipped in heaven; the third, his feet Shadows from either heel with feather'd mail Sky tinctured grain. Like Maia's son he stood And shook his plumes, that heavenly fragrance fill'd The circuit wide." _Paradise Lost_,