It is possible that you have never heard of Tetramorph. This is probably the case if you are not a Christian theology doctor or a prominent member of Ezekiel fan club.
The Tetramorph -or the four living, or the four living beings- represents the four winged beings pulling a chariot in the vision of EzekielEz 1; 1-14 which is then reflected in the Apocalypse of St John.Apoc 4; 7-8.
Later Church Fathers saw it as the emblem of the four Evangelists: the lion for Mark, the bull for Luke, the angel for Matthew and the eagle for John. They often accompany representations of Christ in Majesty.
The angel is Matthew: his gospel begins with the genealogy of Jesus.
The lion is Mark, at the beginning of his Gospel, John the Baptist crying in the wilderness.
The bull is Luke: the first verses of his Gospel, he alludes to Zechariah who offers a sacrifice to God, or in the traditional bestiary, the bull is a sign of sacrifice.
The eagle is John: his gospel begins with the heavenly mystery. (source)Wikipedia
The question is: are they symbolic? Question leads to another: are they really of Christian origin? Or, like most Christian symbols, are they recycling an older concept? Born from the Old Religion, for example?
As a symbol, they are present in the non-Christian medieval imagery, i.e. the arcana of the Tarot de Marseille. Tarot was a money game originally played in clandestine casinos and sailors speakeasy, a game with powerful images and very valuable life lessons thrown by insiders in pubs like a bottle in the sea.
Nothing Christian in the arcana of the Tarot of Marseilles. Certainly, the Pope, Christian personality, can be found at V, as well as the High Priestess at II, who is anything but Orthodox. As I explained in several articles, the Tarot of Marseille is clearly initiation, but a pre-Christian initiation, issued from the science of the Druids, the cult of Isis, and the supermen of Hyperborea.
Major Arcana of the Tarot are numbered I to XXI. There is also the arcanum Le Mat, with no number: it is the old excuse that can occur at any time of the game, at any time of the inner quest. The ultimate Arcanum XXI – The World shows a hermaphrodite in a leafy mandorla. Mandorla comes from the Occitan word for almond, because this kind of halo has this shape. At the four corners of the mandorla – such as the four horizons crucify the world – there are the four beings ot the Tetramorph. Here they are not at all connected to the evangelists, they represent the world. Other evidence, including the Egyptian hieroglyphic, let me suggest that the Tarot is anterior to the Middle Ages. It comes directly from the Atlantean and Hyperborean wisdom.
It comes from the gods before the terraforming gods who designed us, raised us educated us, and shaped us in their image in the hope that (almost) evolved species is able to take over when they leave.
So it would be a loan that the new Christian religion made religions and wisdoms that preceded it. Why be surprised? The practice is universal and eternal. Without our ancestors, where would we be? Each of us builds his faith on the day of old beliefs that no longer has. We all made new with the old.
Forget the recent invention of the evangelists, and together seek what else can match the four beings, the Angel (or man), the Eagle, the Leo/Lion and the Taurus/Cow. The last two refer to astrological eras Lion (-10,000 to -8,000) and Taurus (-4000 to -2000) or rather Cow.
As for the first two beings, the Angel and the Eagle, nonexistent astrological eras, must refer to something else. I favor the following scenario: The new Adam-Eve rules the world by the Angel who created his flesh through the Eagle that gave him the spirit, when the gods were on earth, between – 10000 and -2000.
I wanted to talk about the mysteries of Tetramorph, and here I am on the arcanum XXI of the Tarot de Marseille. Both subjects for me are one and only. Marseille Tarot out the stages of human life, it also tells on double reading, the various stages of the hidden history of our species. So true it is that ontogeny reproduces phylogeny, as the philosophers say; which means in French the history of the individual matches that of its species. If time is given to me, I will tell one day these different stages of our hidden history, which correspond to the 22 Major Arcana of the Tarot of Marseilles.
It is time to return to official sources of the four living, namely the vision of Ezekiel. The biblical prophet would have seen a big wheel was spinning in the sky, with a small wheel turning in the center of the wheel.
Ezekiel describes the approach of a large spacecraft with single-seater planes flying around. Single-seater? This is easily said. The flying machines are the size of a small helicopter, they are capable of hovering, and are configured in a very strange way:
“They each had four faces and four wings each (…) their hooves were like beef hooves.” (source)Ezekiel 1: 6-7 “As for the shape of their faces, they had a man’s face, and all four had a lion’s face to the right, and all four had a bull’s face on the left, and all four had a face of eagle.” (source)Ezekiel 1, 10
These four identical heavenly creatures each with four bull’s legs, four wings of an eagle, four human hands and four different human faces, lion, bull and eagle. These four creatures have their place at the foot of the throne of God’s glory, says Wikipedia.
The reader will excuse me, this is gibberish nonsense. Plato did not understand the description of a camera that gave him a Druid in Britain. As technology barely existed in his time, his understanding of the world could not include a camera. Similarly, the author of the biblical text does not understand the technology content of the vision of Ezekiel. The throne of the glory of God refers to these two concentric wheels turning in the sky, where I see the mother ship of terraforming gods. And helicopters orbiting the throne outweigh four passengers in their plexiglass bubble. Four living are embedded in the transparent cockpit that gives the illusion of a single being with four faces.
Who are they ? Here everyone can be creative. I personally see the representatives of the four humanities that preceded ours. The angel is the first mankind, the 50 meter high giants, the Cyclops. The eagle is the second humanity, that of flying men, vultures or feathered serpents. The Lion is the third humanity, that of the devas, demigods or heroes. The Taurus -or rather the cow- is the humanity that preceded ours, when women were dominant and domineering: the Matriarchs era.
These are the four fairies who have examined our cradle is our four horizons, our four sources, the four rivers of Eden, the four islands that share the earthly paradise. They can also call the High Priestess, the Empress, the Emperor and the Pope. Our four initiators.