{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-4735","native_reference":{"book_number":330,"chapter_from":1,"chapter_to":1,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":6,"verse_to":6},"public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"verse-keyed-module-record","review_required":["English edition and exact text","author/work attribution","dating","verse mapping and citation kind","reuse and attribution","split author quotations and deduplicate"],"review_status":"unreviewed","source_html":"<p><b>Gregory the Dialogist</b>: The four holy living creatures, which are foreseen through the spirit of prophecy, are described with subtle narration when it is said: \"Four faces to each one, and four wings to each one.\" What is expressed by the face except knowledge, and what by the wings except flight? For indeed each one is recognized by the face, while by wings the bodies of birds are lifted up on high. The face therefore pertains to faith, the wing to contemplation. For through faith we are known by almighty God, just as He Himself says of His sheep: \"I am the good shepherd, and I know my sheep, and mine know me.\" Who says again: \"I know whom I have chosen.\" But through contemplation, because we are raised above ourselves, we are as it were lifted into the air. Therefore four faces belong to each one, because if you should ask what Matthew thinks concerning the incarnation of the Lord, he undoubtedly thinks what Mark, Luke, and John think. If you should ask what John thinks, it is without doubt what Luke, Mark, and Matthew think. If you should ask what Mark thinks, it is what Matthew, John, and Luke think. If you should ask what Luke thinks, it is what John, Matthew, and Mark think. Therefore four faces belong to each one, because the knowledge of faith, by which they are known by God, is the same in one as it is simultaneously in all four. For whatever you find in one, you rightly recognize this same thing in all four together.</p><p>And four wings to each one, because they all together harmoniously preach the Son of God Almighty, our Lord Jesus Christ, and lifting the eyes of the mind to His divinity, they fly with the wing of contemplation. Therefore the faces of the Evangelists pertain to the humanity of the Lord, the wing to His divinity, because in Him whom they behold as corporeal, they gaze as it were with their faces. But when they proclaim that He is uncircumscribed and incorporeal in His divinity, they are lifted as it were into the air by the wing of contemplation. Therefore, since there is one faith in His incarnation in all of them, and an equal contemplation of His divinity in each one, it is rightly said now: Four faces to each one, and four wings to each one.<br/><i>— Homilies on Ezekiel, Book 1, Homily 3</i></p><p><b>Jerome</b>: (Verse 6) And in the midst of it is the likeness of four living creatures, and this is their appearance: the likeness of a man is among them. In the midst of it, it is understood, is indeed electricity: but it is better to understand it as fire, which is light for believers and punishment for unbelievers. Therefore, in the midst of this fire, there was the likeness of four living creatures, a likeness, not a nature; and the four living creatures that are later called quadriform, are one likeness of a man, so that all things in the world may be shown to be rational: 'Let us make man in our image and likeness' (Genesis 1). But the image and likeness of God is not the form of the body, but of the mind: described according to the true image of Christ, who is the image of the invisible God. These rational creatures exist in four places, either because of the four cardinal points of the world, by which the globe is enclosed, or because of the four places: celestial, terrestrial, infernal, and supercelestial, of which the apostle Paul also speaks: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth (Philippians 2, 10). Of the three, there is Paul's testimony. Let us see the fourth. Praise the Lord, ye heavens of heavens, and the water that is above the heavens, let the name of the Lord be praised (Psalm CXLVIII, 5). And again, by the Apostle, other heavenly things are said, and other things above heavenly (I Corinthians XV).<br/><i>— Commentary on Ezekiel</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"35d39c5e9399c9657dff89cda869c2efbc3f258946a02408a85656b06d725033","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":4735,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"c00bd55baf75d24d9c398dd4ce2a8a282b69584b4cbebef8a7546e8514d1e805","translator":null,"work":null}