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)
