Four holy animals of revelations, the
Encourage us to reflect on the place of animals in our life
October 29th 2013
These days most people no longer really know how to think of the animal kingdom. They experience it as a separate world, with which they have more or less connection, depending on their culture. There is, however, something that ought to make them think, or at least make Jews and Christians think. When St John, inspired by Ezechiel’s vision in Revelations, mentions the four living beings – or holy animals – standing before God, he writes that the first is like a lion, the second like a bull, the third like a human and the fourth like an eagle.
Cabbalah calls these four holy animals hayoth ha kodesch, ‘animals of holiness’, and the Christian religion calls them ‘seraphim’. Why do three of them – the eagle, the lion and the bull – have animal faces, while only one has a human face? We should not conclude of course that a lion, a bull, an eagle and a human being are really standing before the throne of God. They are symbols, and we have to know how to interpret them.