medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
> Also,
> the authors of the New Testament, many of whom were Jews, seem to expect
> their readers to be familiar with the Old Testament. In this case, the four
> beasts are associated with God in Ezekiel's vision, and the author of
> Revelation may or must have been remembering Ezekiel's vision when he, too,
> describes the beasts as near to God--you'll recall that in Rev. 4.7 they're
> actually standing by God's throne. Probably some post-Biblical Christian
> author made the connection that the Evangelists might have a special
> relationship to God. Since there are four Evangelists as well as four beasts,
> it becomes easy to read the beasts in Rev. as symbols of the Evangelists. My
> understanding is that in the early Christian commentary, there wasn't full
> agreement as to which beast went with which Evangelist, and the line-up as we
> have it today developed only over a period of time.
Images of the four beasts only begin to appear around c.400. In the
early 5th-century apse mosaic of Sta Pudenziana in Rome, the beasts
are ranged across the sky above an enthroned figure of "God", just as
in Revelations, and they are arranged, from left, in the order:
winged man, lion, bull, eagle, suggesting that the standard
identification with the Evangelists had then been made. In some
Insular manuscripts from the 7th and 8th centuries, however, the
symbols of Mark and John are reversed.
I also await the specialists on this question.
Cheers,
Jim Bugslag
**********************************************************************
To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME
to: [log in to unmask]
To send a message to the list, address it to:
[log in to unmask]
To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion
to: [log in to unmask]
In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to:
[log in to unmask]
For further information, visit our web site:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html
|