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CHAPTER XII
together, intertwined with coincidences and differences: wing interwoven with wing, and wheel interwoven with wheel; like them they are full of eyes, and sparkle with heavenly light; like them they sweep from heaven to earth, and from earth to heaven, and fly with lightning’s speed and with the noise of many waters. Their sound is gone out into all lands, and the words to the end of the world.” Among German divines, Dr. Lange is the most ingenious expounder of this symbolism, but he exchanges the symbols of Matthew and Luke. See his Leben Jesu, I., 156 sqq., and his Bibelkunde (1881), p. 176. (2.) The pictorial representations of the four Evangelists, from the rude beginnings in the catacombs and the mosaics of the basilicas at Rome and Ravenna to modern times, have been well described by Mrs. Jameson, Sacred and Legendary Art, vol. I, 132–175 (Boston ed., 1865). She distinguishes seven steps in the progress of Christian art: 1st, the mere fact, the four scrolls, or books of the Evangelists; 2d, the idea, the four rivers of salvation flowing from on high to fertilize the whole earth; 3d, the prophetic symbol, the winged cherub of fourfold aspect; 4th, the Christian symbol, the four “beasts” (better, “living creatures”) in the Apocalypse, with or without the angel-wings; 5th, the combination of the emblematical animal with the human form; 6th, the human personages, each of venerable or inspired aspect, as becomes the teacher and witness, and each attended by the scriptural emblem—no longer an emblem, but an attribute— marking his individual vocation and character; 7th, the human being only, holding his Gospel, i.e., his version of the teaching and example of Christ. (3.) Religious poetry gives expression to the same idea. We find it in Juvencus and Sedulius, and in its perfection in Adam of St. Victor, the greatest Latin poet of the middle ages (about 1172). He made the Evangelists the subject of two musical poems: “Plausu chorus laetabundo,” and “Jocundare plebs fidelis.” Both are found in Gautier’s edition (1858), and with a good English translation by Digby S. Wrangham in The Liturgical Poetry of Adam of St. Victor, London, 1881, vol, II., pp. 156–169. The first has been well reproduced in English by Dr. Plumptre (in his Com. on the Synoptists, in Ellicott’s series, but with the omission of the first three stanzas). I will quote the third stanza of the first (with Wrangham’s version): “ Circa thema generale, Habet quisque speciale Styli privilegium:
THE NEW TESTAMENT
Quod praesignat in propheta Forma pictus sub discreta Vultus animalium.” “Though one set of facts is statted, They by each one are related In a manner all his own: This the prophet by four creatures, Each of different form and features, Pictures for us, one by one.” In the second poem the following stanzas are the best: Formam viri dant Matthaeo, Quia scripsit sic de Deo, Sicut descendit ab eo, Quem plasmavit, homine. Lucas bos est in figura Ut praemonstrat in Scriptura, Hostiarum tangens jura Legis sub velamine. Matthew as the man is treated, Since ‘tis he, who hath related, How from man, by God created, God did, as a man, descend. Luke the ox’s semmblance weareth, Since his Gospel first declareth, As he thence the Law’s veil teareth, Sacrifice’ aim and end. Marcus, lleo per desertum Clamans, rugit in apertum: Iter fiat Deo certum, Mundum cor a crimine. Sed Johannes, ala bina Charitatis, aquilina Forma, fetur in divinaa Puriori lumine. Mark, the lion, his voice upraises, Crying out in desert places: “Cleanse your hearts from all sin’s traces, For our God a way prepare!” John, the eagle’s feature having, Earth on love’s twain pinions leaving, Soars aloft, God’s truth perceiving In light’s purer atmosphere. Ecce forma bestialis Quam Scriptura prophetalis Notat, sed materialis Haec est impositio. Currunt rotis, volant alis; Inest sensus spiuritalis; Rota gressus est aequalis,
