Thursday, February 23, 2023

John Gee on the Changing Depiction of Cherubim from Winged, Falcon-headed lions to a babies with wings

  

Change and Decay in All Around I See

 

It has been noted that “the cherubim of the Bible are hardly the round-faced infant cherubim in Western art.” (Avigad and Sass, Corpus of West Semitic Stamp Seals, 157) How did the cherubim change from being depicted as a winged, falcon-headed lion to a baby with wings? The process actually starts in biblical times. When Nebuchadrezzar (Ibid., 103) conquered Jerusalem and destroyed the temple, the cherubim disappeared from the walls, the Holy of Holies, and the ark of the covenant.

 

The cherubim are associated with revelation since God spoke to Moses from between the cherubim (Numbers 7:89). It is in this context that we can appreciate the description of the cherubim in Ezekiel. For Ezekiel, the cherubim appear when he sees God. Ezekiel provides two descriptions of the cherubim He was of priestly lineage and may have seen the temple when young, but he does not describe the cherubim as they appeared in Solomon’s temple; instead, they have changed a bit. Ezekiel says that the cherubs were the living creatures that he saw at the Khabur river (Ezekiel 10:15). In that description, he described them as “the image of four animals and this is their form: they had the image of a man, and each had four faces and four wings to each one of them. And their feet were straight feet and the sole of their feet like the sole of a calf’s foot and sparkling like polished bronze. And the hands of a man were under their wings on the four sides and their faces and their wrings were on their shades. . . . .and the likeness of their faces were the face of a man and the face of a lion on the right side and the face of an ox on the left, and the face of an eagle on the side” (Ezekiel 1:5-8, 10).

 

Where the cherubim in Solomon’s temple had the face of a falcon or an eagle, Ezekiel’s cherubim had multiple faces. As David Halperin put it: “Ezekiel’s ḥayyot do not look very much like cherubim. The ḥayyot have basically human bodies (Ezekiel 1:6) and animal faces; cherubim have the reverse.” (Ibid., 110-11) Ezekiel’s visions have provided much confusion for those without access to his actual visions. Whether because Ezekiel came in the Babylonian exile or because he was misunderstood by later scribes, the current state of the text represents a first garbling of the depiction of the cherubim.

 

The cherubim were not part of the rebuilt temple of Zerubabel, and their understanding and imagery seems to have been forgotten. It has been argued that without the presence of the cherubim and the ark of the covenant, the temple “could have led only a shadowy existence” and lacked “a centre of gravity.” (A Concise Dictionary of Akkadian, eds. Jeremy Black, Andrew George, and Nicolas Postgate, 192-98, s.v. karābu) But the second temple lacked both and yet still had some gravity. For Jews of the Second Temple Period, the cherubim, which were no longer part of the architecture, faded into the background and were not depicted.

 

The real change in the iconography, however, came with Philo. For Philo, the cherubim were to be construed allegorically (υπονοιων εισαγει) as representing the movements of the whole heavens (την του παντος ουρανου φοραν), the cherub on the right representing the outermost sphere of fixed stars (η μεν ουν εξωτατω των λεγομενων απλανων), and the one on the left representing the inner sphere with moving planets. (Ibid., karūbu) He alternately considered the cherubim as the two hemispheres of the heavens. (Ibid., 216-17, kāribu) To an even higher allegory—which derives, Philo says, from his own thought—is the idea that the cherubim represent goodness (αγαθοτητα) and authority (εξουσιαν). (LSJ 361) But mostly the cherubim were “the winged and heavenly love of the gracious God” [τοω πτηνον ερωτα και ουρανιον του φιλοδωρου θεου].” (Carol Meyers, “Cherubim,” in Anchor Bible Dictionary, ed. David Noel Freedman [New York: Doubleday, 1992], 1:900) Philo uses the term ερως, or Eros, here, which is noteworthy for two things. The first is that the love of God is termed ερως, which is not the way modern theologians have erroneously taught us to consider the love of God. The second is that in Greek iconography, Eros (love), along with Himeros (yearning), “are portrayed as winged youths and later also as child putti.” In the history of Greek art, over time, “Eros grows young. He begins as a fairly grown-up boy in the archaic period, is a young boy in classical art, and becomes a playful putting in the Hellenistic age.” (David J. Halperin, The Faces of the Chariot: Early Jewish Responses to Ezekiel’s Vision [Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1988], 41) A gem from Late Antiquity shows Philo’s conception with two Erotes representing the cherubim in a depiction of the ark of the covenant. (Menahim Haran, Temples and Temple-Service [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978], 4)

 

In the Late Antique world, “in the West the cherubim are given the appearance of the four living creatures of Rev 4:6-7; in the East, the four heads and four wings of Ezek 1:10.” (Philo, On the Cherubim, VII 21-24) Illustrated manuscripts were promoted in the West under Pope Gregory the Great but not in the East until the Empress Theodora sanctioned them. (Ibid., VIII 25-26)

 

Thus the chain of transmission for the tradition was broken, and the original depiction was lost. It was then left for another tradition to supplant the original one. (John Gee, “Cherubim and Seraphim: Iconography in the First Jerusalem Temple,” in The Temple Past, Present, & Future: Proceedings of the Fifth Interpreter Foundation, ed. Stephen D. Ricks and Jeffrey M. Bradshaw [Salt Lake City: Eborn Books/Provo, Utah: The Interpreter Foundation, 2021], 102-4)