utter inability of the human imagination, whether orthodox or heterodox, to produce such a character
as the historical Jesus of Nazareth.
No post-apostolic writers could have composed the canonical Gospels, and the apostles
themselves could not have composed them without the inspiration of the spirit of Christ.
Notes.- The Symbolism of the Gospels. This belongs to the history of Christian poetry and art,
but also to the history of exegesis, and may be briefly mentioned here. It presents the limited
recognition of the individuality of the Gospels among the fathers and throughout the middle ages.
The symbolic attributes of the Evangelists were suggested by Ezekiel’s vision of the four
cherubim which represent the creation and carry the throne of God (Ez. 1:15 sqq.; 10:1 sqq.; 11:22),
and by the four "living creatures" (ζῶα, notθηρία, "beasts," with which the E. V. confounds them)
in the Apocalypse (Rev. 4:6–9; 5:6, 8, 11, 14; 6:1, 3, 5, 6, 7; 7:11; 14:3; 15:7; 19:4).
(1.) The theological use. The cherubic figures which the prophet saw in his exile on the
banks of the Chebar, symbolize the divine attributes of majesty and strength reflected in the animal
creation; and the winged bulls and lions and the eagle-beaded men of Assyrian monuments have
a similar significance. But the cherubim were interpreted as prophetic types of the four Gospels as
early as the second century, with some difference in the application.
Irenaeus (about 170) regards the faces of the cherubim (man, lion, ox, eagle) as "images of
the life and work of the Son of God," and assigns the man to Matthew, and the ox to Luke, but the
eagle to Mark and the lion to John (Adv. Haer., III. 11, 8, ed. Stieren I. 469 sq.). Afterwards the
signs of Mark and John were properly exchanged. So by Jerome (d. 419) in his Com. on Ezekiel
and other passages. I quote from the Prologus to his Comment. in Ev. Matthaei (Opera, vol. VII.,
p. 19, ed. Migne): "Haec igitur quatuor Evangelia multo ante praedicta, Ezechielis quoque volumen
probat, in quo prima visio ita contexitur: ’Et in medio sicut similitudo quatuor animalium: et vultus
eorum facies hominis, et facies leonis, et facies vituli, et facies aquilae’ (Ezech. 1:5 et 10). Prima
hominis facies Matthaeum significat, qui quasi de homine exorsus est scribere: ’Liber generationis
Jesu Christi, filii David, filii Abraham’ (Matth. 1). Secunda, Marcum, in quo [al. qua] vox leonis
in eremo rugientis auditur: ’Vox clamantis in deserto [al. eremo], Parate viam Domini, rectas
facile semitas ejus’ (Marc. 1:3). Tertia, vituli, quae evangelistam Lucam a Zacharia sacerdote
sumpsisse initium praefigurat. Quarta, Joannem evangelistam, qui assumptis pennis aquilae, et ad
altiora festinans, de Verbo Dei disputat.
Augustin (De Consens. Evang., Lib. I., c. 6, in Migne’s ed. of the Opera, tom. III., 1046)
assigns the lion to Matthew, the man to Mark (whom he wrongly regarded as an abbreviator of
Matthew), the ox to Luke, and the eagle to John, because "he soars as an eagle above the clouds of
human infirmity, and gazes on the light of immutable truth with most keen and steady eyes of the
heart." In another place (Tract. XXXVI. in Joh. Ev., c. 8, § 1) Augustin says: "The other three
Evangelists walked as it were on earth with our Lord as man (tamquam cum homine Domino in
terra ambulabant) and said but little of his divinity. But John, as if he found it oppressive to walk
on earth, opened his treatise, so to speak, with a peal of thunder .... To the sublimity of this beginning
all the rest corresponds, and he speaks of our Lord’s divinity as no other." He calls the evangelic
quaternion "the fourfold car of the Lord, upon which he rides throughout the world and subdues
the nations to his easy yoke." Pseudo-Athanasius (Synopsis Script.) assigns the man to Matthew,
the ox to Mark, the lion to Luke. These variations in the application of the emblems reveal the
defects of the analogy. The man might as well (with Lange) be assigned to Luke’s Gospel of
A.D. 1-100.