Record #75
Haniel, Kafziel, Azriel, and Aniel
Multi-winged angelic beings surrounding the divine throne in celestial praise.
Original Text
In Babylon, the prophet Ezekiel saw in a vision four beasts or angels, ‘And every one had four faces, and every one had four wings’ and ‘As for the likeness of their faces, they four had the face of a man, and the face of a lion, on the right side: and they four had the face of an ox on the left side; they four also had the face of an eagle.’ They went where the spirit carried them, ‘every one straight forward’, or as the first Spanish Bible (I;69) has it, cadauno caminauaenderechodesu rostro (‘each one went in the direction of his face’) which of course is so unimaginable as to be uncanny. Four wheels or rings, ‘so high that they were dreadful’ went with the angels and ‘were full of eyes round about them . . . ’
An echo from Ezekiel may have been in the mind of St John the Divine when he spoke of animals in the fourth chapter of Revelations:
And before the throne therewas a sea of glass like unto crystal: and in the midst of the throne, and round about the throne, were four beasts full of eyes before and behind.
And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle.
And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were full of eyes within: and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come.
In the most important of Kabbalistic works, the Zohar or Book ofSplendour, we read that these four beasts are called Haniel, Kafziel, Azriel, and Aniel and that they face east, north, south, and west. Stevenson remarked that if such beings were to be found in Heaven, what might not be expected of Hell.
A beast full of eyes is sufficiently awful, but Chesterton went further in the poem ‘A Second Childhood’:
But Ishall not grow too old to see Enormous night arise,
A cloud that is larger than the world And a monster made of eyes.
The fourfold angels in Ezekiel are called Hayoth, or Living Beings; according to the Sefer Yeçirah, another of the Kabbalist books, they are the ten numbers that were used by God, together with the twenty-two letters of the alphabet, to create the world; according to the Zohar, they came down from Heaven crowned with letters.
The Evangelists drew their symbols from the four faces of the Hayoth: to Matthew fell the man’s face, sometimes bearded; to Mark, the lion’s; to Luke, the calf’s; and to John, the eagle’s. St Jerome in his commentary on Ezekiel has attempted to reason out these attributions. Matthew was given the man’s face because he emphasized the humanity of Christ; Mark the lion’s because he declared Christ’s royal standing; Luke the calf’s because it is an emblem of sacrifice; John the eagle’s because of Christ’s soaring spirit.
A German scholar, Dr Richard Hennig, looks for the remote origin of these symbols in four zodiacal signs which lie ninety degrees apart. The lion and the calf give no trouble; the man has been linked to Aquarius, who has a man’s face; and the eagle is evidently Scorpio considered an ill omen and therefore changed. Nicholas deVore, in his Encyclopedia ofAstrology, sustains the same hypothesis and remarks that the four figures come together in the sphinx, which may have a human head, the body of a bull, the claws and tail of a lion, and the wings of an eagle.
An echo from Ezekiel may have been in the mind of St John the Divine when he spoke of animals in the fourth chapter of Revelations:
And before the throne therewas a sea of glass like unto crystal: and in the midst of the throne, and round about the throne, were four beasts full of eyes before and behind.
And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle.
And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were full of eyes within: and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come.
In the most important of Kabbalistic works, the Zohar or Book ofSplendour, we read that these four beasts are called Haniel, Kafziel, Azriel, and Aniel and that they face east, north, south, and west. Stevenson remarked that if such beings were to be found in Heaven, what might not be expected of Hell.
A beast full of eyes is sufficiently awful, but Chesterton went further in the poem ‘A Second Childhood’:
But Ishall not grow too old to see Enormous night arise,
A cloud that is larger than the world And a monster made of eyes.
The fourfold angels in Ezekiel are called Hayoth, or Living Beings; according to the Sefer Yeçirah, another of the Kabbalist books, they are the ten numbers that were used by God, together with the twenty-two letters of the alphabet, to create the world; according to the Zohar, they came down from Heaven crowned with letters.
The Evangelists drew their symbols from the four faces of the Hayoth: to Matthew fell the man’s face, sometimes bearded; to Mark, the lion’s; to Luke, the calf’s; and to John, the eagle’s. St Jerome in his commentary on Ezekiel has attempted to reason out these attributions. Matthew was given the man’s face because he emphasized the humanity of Christ; Mark the lion’s because he declared Christ’s royal standing; Luke the calf’s because it is an emblem of sacrifice; John the eagle’s because of Christ’s soaring spirit.
A German scholar, Dr Richard Hennig, looks for the remote origin of these symbols in four zodiacal signs which lie ninety degrees apart. The lion and the calf give no trouble; the man has been linked to Aquarius, who has a man’s face; and the eagle is evidently Scorpio considered an ill omen and therefore changed. Nicholas deVore, in his Encyclopedia ofAstrology, sustains the same hypothesis and remarks that the four figures come together in the sphinx, which may have a human head, the body of a bull, the claws and tail of a lion, and the wings of an eagle.