Commentaria in Exodum
First, then, Philo, book On the Cherubim, says that the Cherubim are symbols or signs which signify and represent the outermost circumference of the whole heaven, in which the fixed stars always in the same way lead their divine dances: where Philo seems to have thought that the eighth sphere, or starry heaven, is the outermost and last, signified by the Cherubim, and therefore that the Cherubim are symbols of the power and goodness of God; but what these signs were, in what appearance and form, Philo is silent. Theodoret follows Philo, on Genesis, Quest. 40, where he teaches that by the name Cherub Scripture always signifies a dreadful power. This, if you regard the etymology of Cherubim, is false; if the thing itself, it is true: because God uses the Cherubim, as almost the chief princes of His court, only for high and arduous things.
Secondly, Josephus, book 3 Antiq. chap. 6: “The Cherubim,” he says, “are winged living creatures, of a new form, never seen by any man, which Moses had seen figured on the throne of God.”
But I say, first, that these two Cherubim had human appearance and form. So commonly teach the Hebrews and Christians; and this is plain from 2 Paral. 3:13, where it is said of the Cherubim: “And they stood upon their feet.” Secondly, because the Cherubim of Ezechiel, chap. 1, who were made after the likeness of these Cherubim, had the appearance of a man, or of a winged youth: for they had the hands of a man, with which they took fire, as is said in chap. 10 of Ezech., verse 7. This Jerome Prado shows at length and learnedly on chap. 1 of Ezech., namely that those four living creatures of Ezechiel had indeed the form of four animals; but in the whole body and face chiefly represented a man, and are thence called Cherubim, or winged youths, that is, angels. Thirdly, because these Cherubim had the faces of men; for of them it is said here in the Hebrew: And the face of each was turned to his brother. The Cherubim were, then, golden images in the appearance of a winged and beardless youth, that by this appearance they might represent the vigour, liveliness and eternity of the angels, who are as princes always attending and standing by God; as for the same cause Emperors were of old painted beardless, as certain earthly gods who never grow old.
I say secondly: It is probable that these Cherubim, besides the appearance of a man, had also that of other animals. It is proved first, because both Josephus and St. Jerome on chap. 10 of Ezech., and epist. 13 to Marcella, attribute to these Cherubim the form of animals. Secondly, because Ezechiel expressly, chap. 1, teaches that the Cherubim had the appearance of four animals, namely of a man, an eagle, a lion and a calf.
The same, chap. 10, verse 14, calls the face of the Cherub the face of a calf; and those Cherubim of Ezechiel were like, nay the same with, these Mosaic ones, as commonly teach the doctors, whom Viegas cites in Apoc. 4, sect. 12, and Villalpando on chap. 41 of Ezech.; for Ezechiel, speaking of the four living creatures which he had seen in chap. 1, says: “I understood that they were the Cherubim,” namely those commonly famous among the Jews, which Moses by God’s command made in the tabernacle. This opinion will seem more probable if we say with Jerome Prado that the four faces of the Cherubim in Ezechiel were not faces properly so called. For the Hebrew panim, and the Greek prosopon, or horama, signifies appearance, form, habit: so that the face properly so called of the Cherubim was only human; but the face improperly so called, that is, the appearance, was fourfold. For the first and chief face and appearance of almost the whole body was that of a man. The second was that of an eagle, because they had the wings of an eagle.
The third was that of a lion, because they had the manes of a lion. The fourth was that of a calf, because they had the feet, that is, the hooves of a calf.
But Sebastian Barradius, Alcazar and others generally reject this opinion as new and difficult, and think that these four faces of the Cherubim in Ezechiel were faces properly so called. For the words of Scripture plainly signify this, since they distinguish faces from wings or feathers, and from feet, Ezech. 1:6: “Every one had four faces, and every one four wings. Their feet were straight feet, and the sole of their foot was like the sole of a calf’s foot.” And verse 11: “Their faces and their wings were stretched upward.” Again, that it says one face was on the left, another on the right. And thus Alcazar, on Apocal. 4, depicts these Cherubim with four faces fitly and neatly enough.
Whatever be the truth of this matter, of which I treated more fully on Ezech. chap. 1, these Cherubim of Moses seem to have had the appearance of those of Ezechiel, because they seem to have been the type and pattern of them. Hence both are called Cherubim, as though they were the same, and known by the same name. Add that the Cherubim, both here and in Ezechiel 1, by their fourfold appearance were meant to signify the four emblems of God sitting upon the propitiatory, as I shall presently explain more fully. Hence again St. John, Apocalypse 4:7, describes these same Cherubim in the form of four living creatures. Hence also the Apostle calls the Cherubim “overshadowing the propitiatory,” in the neuter gender, because he regards those living creatures of Ezechiel, whose appearance the Cherubim had. Hence, thirdly, in Scripture “the work of Cherubim” is called variegated work, and variously painted, as these Cherubim had the varied appearance and form of four animals. Hence finally, namely from these Cherubim, “the Egyptians fashioned their sphinxes,” says Clement of Alexandria, book 5 of the Stromata, “and placed them in their sacred rites, since discourse about God is enigmatical and obscure; and perhaps because one ought to love and fear God: to love Him, indeed, as kind and propitious to the holy; to fear Him, however, as one who is inexorably just to the impious: for the sphinx signifies at the same time almost the image of a man;” so far Clement: whence it is clear that the sphinxes of the Egyptians were apes of the Cherubim. For as the Cherubim, so also the sphinxes represented the divine and secret knowledge of obscure and sublime things.
Whence to the orator Hortensius, who, having received a golden sphinx from Verres in place of pay, said when something rather obscure was said to him that he was unskilled in solving riddles, Cicero wittily answered: “And yet you have a sphinx at home;” Plutarch is witness in his Cicero. Finally, the sphinx was of many forms like the Cherubim. Hence the Poet:
The sphinx is winged as a bird, a beast in the feet, a maiden in the face: the sphinx therefore is winged, bird, lion, virgin, of three forms.
R. Solomon adds that the two Cherubim were distinguished by sex, and that one was male, the other female; Arias Montanus holds the same, book On Noe, title On the Propitiatory. But this is as ridiculous as it is unseemly and indecorous: for angels lack sex. Our painters clothe the Cherubim in tunics to the ankles, and gird them with girdles: but these they have added to them for ornament: for no mention of garment is made here; the Cherubim were therefore naked, but with their wings in part they veiled themselves, whence also they were seen by no one: for no one could enter the Holy of Holies save the pontiff, and he only once a year, and then the cloud and smoke of the incense covered the Cherubim, so that they could not be seen.
It is asked secondly, what and of what kind was the position of these Cherubim about the ark and the propitiatory?
I say first: Their position was this, that partly by their wings, partly by their body, they covered the whole propitiatory.
For one Cherub was at the south of the propitiatory, the other at the north, so that by the thickness of their bodies they covered those sides of the breadth of the propitiatory: but the eastern and western side, which were the sides of the length of the propitiatory, they covered and veiled with their wings stretched out toward each other; as if two men looked at each other and held hands: so also these two Cherubim had their faces turned toward each other and toward the propitiatory, and with their wings spread, each touched the spread wing of the other on both sides. The position and disposition of the Cherubim which Solomon made in the temple was different: for they were not turned toward each other, but were adjoining and side by side, one being set at the side of the other. Hence, secondly, they did not have their faces turned to each other, but each had his face to the east, and his back to the west.
Thirdly, they did not encircle the ark and the propitiatory, as these Mosaic ones did; but spread their wings through the whole breadth of the Holy of Holies, so that one Cherub with the tip of one wing touched the southern wall; the other, adjoining him, with the tip of one wing touched the opposite northern wall of the Holy of Holies. Finally, Solomon made two kinds of Cherubim, namely the first in the Holy of Holies, just spoken of, the second at the altar of incense, like the former, which veiled the altar as the former veiled the ark, as appears 1 Paral. 28:18; to which add the third, these Cherubim which Moses made, and which Solomon brought with the ark into his temple and the Holy of Holies. Three kinds of Cherubim, then, as said, were in the temple of Solomon.