Tetramorph. The Roles of Divinity in the History of Salvation. The Four Living Beings

By Alberto Canen

What do the four living beings of Revelation mean?
Who are the living beings?
The four living beings of the Apocalypse, or the tetramorph, represent the roles of Divinity in the History of Salvation (munera divinitas in historia salutis). Both in the prophecy of Ezekiel and in the book of Revelation according to John, we can see the description of these four figures, which the hagiographers - the sacred writers - describe as beings with the faces of a man, an ox, a lion, and an eagle. Beings that are presented in close relationship with God and that have, at some point, generated a certain sense of hiddenness and, at the same time - perhaps -, of the strangest and most unsettling visions in the Bible.
Everything in the Bible has its meaning, its reason for being, and for its explanation it is necessary to analyze the history of Salvation, its development, and how God intervenes in the history of humanity in his desire to rescue it from the hands of the enemy, - Satan -, to bring it to redemption.
These living beings are key, a reflection and metaphor of that task to which God devotes himself, and they express the mechanisms, and perhaps systems used for that purpose by interacting in the development of human life from its beginnings to the end of times. These mechanisms, - we could say -, are what we call the roles of divinity in the history of salvation. Roles, facets, functions that God interprets and assumes through the Word for the transcendental task.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alberto Canen
• Release date: Feb 16, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224908844

Alberto Canen

Alberto Canen (Argentina-1962) Escritor y periodista.Desde 1999 a 2016 fue editor de paginadigital.com.ar portal de mas de 150.000 paginas.En diciembre de 2003 ganó el premio Mate-ar al mejor sitio de arte y cultura, y fue el ganador del Premio Pymes Clarín 2008.Especialista en CEO y posicionamiento web.Ha escrito los libros sobre La Biblia "El observador del Génesis" y "Un único Dios" en 2012. Y "Cordero de Dios" en 2020, con más de 500.000 libros vendidos en todo el mundo, además de otros libros sobre política internacional.

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Alberto Canen

TETRAMORPH

The roles of divinity

in the history of salvation.

The four living beings

Acknowledgments

To my wife who supports me in everything.

To my children and their questions.

To Father Luis Ayerza, from whom I listen and learn.

To my friend Carlos Escudero, with whom we share studies.

And to my family, friends, and students who motivate me and help me continue researching and deepening.

Copyright 2023

Canen, Alberto

Smashword Edition

Tetramorph / Alberto Canen; illustrated by Alberto Canen. –

Boulogne: The author.

E-Book. ISBN 9798224908844

Religion. 2. Spirituality. I. Castro, Pablo Rodolfo, illus. II. Title

CDD 291.4

Cataloging Date: 2023-12-30

Índice

INTRODUCTION

2. BACKGROUND

- Literary and Artistic Symbolism

- Other Sources and Analysis

- Prefigures

3. HISTORY OF SALVATION

- The Garden of Eden

4. THE LAMB – ANIMAL SACRIFICES

- The Golden Calf

5. THE INCARNATE WORD OF GOD

6. THE ROLES

7. THE GOSPELS

- The Sea of the Apocalypse

- Order

8. THE VISION OF EZEKIEL – THE TETRAMORPH

9. GOSPELS FROM THE ROLES

- Marck

- Matheu

- Luke

- John

10. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

- Studies

- Published Books

Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

The four living creatures - or the tetramorph [1]-, represent the roles of Divinity in the History of Salvation (munera Divinitas in historia salutis). In both the prophecy of Ezekiel and the Book of Revelation according to John, we can find the description of these four figures that the hagiographers - the sacred writers - depict as beings with faces of a man, ox, lion, and eagle. These beings are presented in close relation to God and have, at some point, evoked a certain sense of mystery and perhaps even some of the most peculiar and unsettling visions in the Bible.

Everything in the Bible has its meaning, its purpose, and for its explanation, it is necessary to analyze the history of Salvation, its development, and how God intervenes in the history of humanity with the desire to rescue it from the hands of the enemy - Satan - and bring it to redemption.

These living creatures are key, reflecting and metaphorizing the task to which God dedicates Himself. They express the mechanisms, and perhaps the systems, used for that purpose as they interact in the development of human life from its beginnings to the end of times. These mechanisms, we could say, are what we call the roles of divinity in the history of salvation. These roles, facets, functions are interpreted by God and assumed through the Word for the transcendental task.

1 Tetramorphs (from the Greek τετρα, tetra, four, y μορφη, morfé, form).

Chapter 2

BACKGROUND

Literary and Artistic Symbolism

Christian authors endowed the living creatures - or the tetramorph - with rich symbolism, with the commentaries of Irenaeus and Jerome having the greatest artistic impact. Irenaeus (2nd century, Against Heresies) was possibly the first to associate the living creatures with the evangelists, linking the eagle to Mark and the lion to John [2]. However, in artworks, while the tetramorph-evangelist relationship is maintained, Irenaeus' association is inverted, with the eagle being connected to John and the lion to Mark.

In the 4th century, Saint Jerome (Commentary on Ezekiel) also argued that each of the beings represented one of the evangelists. According to Saint Jerome, man symbolized Matthew, as his Gospel begins with the human genealogy of Christ; the lion represented Mark, as he starts his text by mentioning John the Baptist, the voice crying in the wilderness (Mt 1:3), and the lion was a desert animal; the ox represented Luke because he opens his account with the sacrifice of Zechariah, and the ox was a sacrificial animal; and the eagle represented John because his writing is the most abstract and rises above the others. These associations were literally transferred to art.

For other authors like Saint Ambrose (4th century)[3], Gregory the Great (6th century)[4], Honorius of Autun (12th century)[5] or Peter of Capua (12th-13th century)[6], the living creatures would refer to the incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, i.e., Christ was a man in birth, a calf in death, a lion in resurrection, and an eagle in ascension. The connection between the lion and resurrection proposed by these authors was also developed in medieval bestiaries, which in turn drew inspiration from the Physiologus (anonymous work possibly from Alexandria in the 2nd century)[7]. However, this symbolic interpretation did not have artistic or theological significance.

2 - FROMAGET, Michel (2003): p. 52, y VAN DER MEER, Frederik (1938): p. 224

3 - FROMAGET, Michel (2003): p. 54, cites the words of Saint Ambrose in the Treatise on the Gospel of Saint Luke: Jesus was a man because he was born of Mary, an ox because he was a victim, a lion because he was strong, and an eagle because of his resurrection (free translation from the French text).

4 - Gregory the Great, Homilies on Ezekiel, IV, 1.

5 - Honorius of Autun, Honorius Augustodunensis, Honorius of Augsburg, or Honorius of Regensburg was a German priest, geographer, theologian, philosopher, bibliographer, and cosmologist from the Middle Ages.

6 - Peter of Capua (Pierre de Capuano, deceased in August 1242) was an Italian scholastic theologian and philosopher, cardinal, and papal legate.

Nor did the iconographic impact extend to the writings of Origen (3rd century)[8] who, in the Homilies on Ezekiel, associated the animals of the Apocalypse with the human being. According to him, the eagle represented the spirit, the man symbolized the intellectual and rational aspect, the lion signified the emotional and irascible side, and the ox represented the bodily and instinctive desires [9].

The same can be said for the thoughts of Raoul Gabler (11th century), a French monk, who believed in a correspondence between the animals of the tetramorph and the cardinal virtues, the elements, the senses of man, the rivers of paradise, and biblical eras [10].

7 - The Physiologus states the following: When the lioness gives birth, she gives birth to her cub dead and cares for it for three days, until on the third day, the father arrives, breathes on the face of the cub, and resurrects it. Thus, the omnipotent universal father, on the third day, resurrected the firstborn of all creation from the dead. - Taken from GUGLIELMI, Nilda (ed.) (2002): The Physiologus. Medieval Bestiary. Eneida, Madrid, pp. 65-66.

8 - Origen of Alexandria, also known as Origen Adamantius, was a Christian scholar, ascetic, and theologian.

9 - FROMAGET, Michel (2003): p. 53.

10 - A Spanish translation of this text is included in BEIGDEBER, Olivier (1989): p. 95.

Other Sources and Analysis

Some have suggested that the Judeo-Christian four living creatures, conceived as winged creatures with half-human, half-animal forms, might have drawn inspiration from ancient literary sources and perhaps Egyptian and Mesopotamian artistic influences. It has been theorized that Egyptian deities, depicted with a human body and an animal face, could have influenced Christian artists. This could be due to parallels between the solar falcon Horus and John's eagle, the lioness Sekhmet and Mark's lion, or the celestial cow Hathor and Luke's ox. Additionally, considering that Ezekiel lived in Babylon in the 6th century BCE, it has been conjectured that the living creatures he described may have been inspired by the winged bulls with human faces that flanked some entrances of Assyrian palaces, such as those in the palace of Sargon II (8th century BCE, currently at the Louvre Museum).

However, it is crucial to bear in mind that both the representations of gods and the animals associated with them were based, for those ancient cultures, on what existed in their region. Therefore, these representations were easy for