Commentaria in Exodum
That this is so is plain first from the fact that Solomon, making the Cherubim of the temple after the pattern of the Cherubim of the tabernacle, made them as a quadriga, as is said 1 Paral. 28:18; secondly, from the fact that Ezechiel, chap. 1, saw four living creatures, namely Cherubim, attending the chariot of God, after the pattern of the Cherubim of the temple and tabernacle, and calls this chariot the chariot of the glory of God; thirdly, because Cherubim by metathesis are said to be as it were rekubim, that is, chariots, because they attend the chariot of God, as I shall presently say.
I say secondly: These Cherubim signify angels, who are as the attendants of God. Hence they bear the four emblems and insignia of the Lord their God: for the appearance of an eagle signifies the wisdom of God; the appearance of a man signifies the goodness, meekness and clemency of God; the ox signifies the justice of God, and the religion and worship due to Him, namely that by oxen and other victims that supreme majesty is to be worshipped and adored; the lion signifies the fortitude and power of God. These attributes the Cherubim themselves, that is, the angels, participate in themselves from God and represent. For they are eagles by swiftness and contemplation; lions by fortitude;
men by meekness; oxen by patience and labours. So St. Dionysius, Celestial Hierarchy, chap. 15. Hence it is plain that Cherubim here signify not only the order of angels of the first hierarchy, who are properly called Cherubim; but all the other orders of angels as well. Whence the Fathers sometimes call these Cherubim also Seraphim, as Villalpando shows, book 4, chap. 96, p. 132, where for this he cites Cyril, Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian, nay and St. Thomas.
I say thirdly: Allegorically this chariot of the Cherubim, and of the glory of God the triumpher and redeemer of the Hebrews from Egypt, signifies the triumphal chariot of Christ the redeemer of men; which chariot is the Church, of which it is said Cant. 1:8: “To my company of horsemen,” that is, of the four-horse chariot or car, “in Pharao’s chariots I have compared thee, O my love.” The four wheels are the Apostles, Pastors and Doctors, who drive and spread the chariot of the Gospel and of the Church strongly and swiftly, like lightning, through the whole world. Hence the Cherubim bear the four emblems of Christ: for the appearance of a man signifies Christ’s incarnation; the appearance of a calf signifies Christ’s death and immolation on the cross; the appearance of a lion signifies Christ’s fortitude, which He showed in the resurrection; the appearance of an eagle signifies Christ’s ascension into heaven: and these He communicates to His Christians and Saints, as I said a little before that God communicates His emblems to the angels.
Anagogically, these are the four emblems of the triumphant Church and of the heavenly kingdom, where God reigns on the throne of glory: for the eagle signifies the vision of God; the man, the mutual love of the Saints and the concord of the kingdom; the lion, power and immortality; the calf, offering and adoration of God; the wheels, their eternity.
Tropologically St. Gregory, homil. 6 on the Gospels:
“Everyone,” he says, “if so far as he can he calls back his neighbour from wickedness, if he takes care to exhort to well-doing, if he announces to him that errs the eternal kingdom or punishment, when he bestows the words of holy announcement, becomes an angel.” The same, homily 34: “Those who are able to grasp and announce the chief of heavenly secrets are reckoned in the number of the Archangels. And there are some who are so full of the love of God and neighbour that they are rightly named Cherubim. For since Cherubim is called fulness of knowledge, and since we have learned from Paul that the fulness of the law is charity; all who are fuller than others of the charity of God and neighbour have received the lot of their merits among the numbers of the Cherubim. And there are some who, kindled by the torches of heavenly contemplation, pant for their Creator alone, and now desire nothing in this world, are fed by the love of eternity alone, cast away all earthly things, transcend by the mind all temporal things, love and burn, and in their very burning find rest; burning by loving, they kindle others by speaking, and those whom they touch with a word they make forthwith burn with the love of God: these have received the lot of their calling among the number of the Seraphim.”
It is asked fourthly, why were these Cherubim placed at the oracle, or propitiatory; and in what sense is God said to sit, or to be borne, upon the Cherubim? I answer: God is said to sit upon the Cherubim, because the joined wings of the Cherubim offered a certain appearance of a seat. For this was the appearance of that throne: a golden table (which is called the propitiatory) served as the footstool of His feet; the two little Cherubim, as a chair. For placed opposite, and turned toward each other, they had their wings stretched out and held against each other: just as if two men, turned toward each other, should stretch out their arms on either side and join them, to make a seat for someone to sit on: so the heads of the Cherubim were as the sides of the chair; and the stretched wings were the seat. Now by this symbol, and by this phrase, by which God is said to be borne and to sit upon the Cherubim, there is signified, first, that God far transcends the most wise angelic spirits in foreknowledge, and in the foresight and prediction of things to come, and in all knowledge and wisdom, and as it were treads them under His feet: for Scripture is wont to commend the power and wisdom of God chiefly from this, that He is the God of hosts, namely of the angelic, because thousands of thousands minister to Him, because He makes His angels spirits, etc.; secondly, these Cherubim look partly to God sitting on their wings, partly to the propitiatory: because angels attribute not to themselves, but to God, their wings, that is, their forces and powers, and every good they have. So St. Augustine, Quest. 105. Again, by this very thing they signify that God is the end of the law, and that the law which was in the ark is to be kept for God’s sake; thirdly, the two Cherubim in the Holy of Holies, who with faces turned toward each other (though with lowered face) always looked at each other, signified that God shows Himself to be seen by the blessed, angels as well as men, burning with the highest charity toward each other (which is signified by the number two and the faces turned toward each other), and by this glorious sight of Himself makes them blessed. So St. Augustine and St. Thomas.
I say secondly: In the time of Moses, when God dwelt not in the temple but in the tabernacle, as it were journeying, and leading His people with an armed hand through the midst of enemies into Chanaan, God was said to be borne and to ride upon the Cherubim, as leader of war and of victory for the Hebrews against the Chanaanites and other enemies; but after He had settled His people in Chanaan, and dwelt with them peacefully in the temple, God was said to sit upon the Cherubim, as appears Isaias 37:16, because on them, the victory now won and quiet established, He seemed to rest as victor and triumpher, and to keep by them the empire which He had won by His knowledge and providence. For “it is no less virtue to keep what is won than to seek it.” Hence Augustus Caesar, hearing that Alexander, aged thirty-two, had subdued most things, and was therefore anxious about the matter, namely what he should do next: “I wonder,” he said, “that Alexander did not think it a work of greater labour to establish well an empire won than to win it;” Plutarch is witness in his Augustus.
Symbolically, the Holy of Holies represented heaven; the two Cherubim, the two hemispheres; the six wings (for there are so many if you take the two hands for two wings, as I said on Ezech. 1) in each, that is, twelve in the two, signified the twelve signs of the Zodiac, and the time which is described and runs through them; the ark signified the rest which the Cherubim, that is, the heavenly spirits, have in God. So Clement, book 5 of the Stromata. Again, Barradius, vol. 1, book 5, chap. 31, says fitly enough: As the ark of the testament is the Blessed Virgin, the propitiatory Christ: so the Cherub is Joseph, both because he was the guardian and protector of Christ in boyhood, and because his arms were often the seat of God, namely of Christ, according to that of Psalm 79: “Thou that sittest upon the cherubims;” for as a father and foster-father he dealt with Christ.
Allegorically St. Gregory, homil. 26 on the Gospels:
The two angels, he says, whom Magdalen saw in the sepulchre of Christ, and the two Cherubim of the ark, are the two Testaments: the propitiatory is Christ incarnate. “And while the Old Testament announces that this is to be done, which the New Testament cries out has been done of the Lord, the two Cherubim, as it were, look at each other, while they turn their faces toward the propitiatory: because while they see the incarnate Lord placed between them, they do not differ in their gaze, but concordantly narrate the mystery of His dispensation;” so far St. Gregory.