Commentaria in Isaiam
Third, six wings signify that they are, first, most agile and endowed with the greatest power of motion, so that they can move and fly most swiftly in the six differences of position, namely up, down, forward, back, right and left; so that in speed they surpass winds, lightnings, the sun and all the heavens. So Pererius on Apocalypse 4, disputation 94. Second, that they tend to God with most perfect knowledge and love. So St. Dionysius, Celestial Hierarchy, chap. 7 and 13: “The most sacred figure of six wings,” he says, “signifies the most absolute and highest intention toward God in the first, middle and last intelligences.” The cause is that the number three, as Aristotle testifies, is a symbol of perfection; the doubling of three, therefore, that is six, adds a great increase to perfection, and signifies a double perfection. For six is the first perfect number, composed of its own first parts; for one, two, three, which are the first parts of six, joined and added make six.
Again, the six differences of position, to which correspond the six wings, as I said, arise from the number three, or from the threefold dimension of quantity and body, namely from length, breadth and thickness; for these have their termini. For before and behind are the termini of length; right and left of breadth; up and down of thickness or depth. Moreover these three dimensions arise from three lines intersecting one another perpendicularly at right angles, namely from the threefold cross, as I said on Ephesians 3:18. Properly, however, six wings befitted the Seraphim; because two were required to veil the face, two to veil the feet, two for flying.
Tropologically, St. Bonaventure, at the end of volume 2, wrote a book on the six wings of the Seraphim, which every faithful man ought to have, as well as a Superior and Prelate. The faithful man, then, endowed with faith and charity: the first wing, he says, is confession; the second, satisfaction; the third, cleanness of flesh; the fourth, purity of mind; the fifth, love of neighbour; the sixth, love of God. A Superior, however, should have as wings, first, zeal for justice; second, piety and paternal compassion; third, patience and steadfast long-suffering; fourth, that he be an exemplar of every virtue; fifth, discretion and prudence; sixth, familiarity and union with God: with these wings he will make himself and his people fly to perfection and to God.
2. With two they covered his face, and with two they covered his feet.—The Hebrew panaiv signifies both their face and his face, namely God’s; so raglaiv signifies both their feet and his feet.
There is here, then, a double rendering: the former, with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet. So the Chaldee, Forerius, Vatablus, Sanchez and Chrysostom, homily 4 on this vision, and so it is read in the Preface of the Liturgy of St. James and of the Ethiopians. The latter is, with two they covered his face, and with two they covered his feet. So our Interpreter, St. Cyril, Hugh, Peter Damian, epistle Both readings are true, and one is joined with the other. For these Seraphim joined their wings above, and so covered their own face with them, and consequently with the same also covered the face of God; for the wings being interposed between the face of the Seraphim and the face of God, they covered with them both the face of God and their own, nor could they otherwise cover the face of God with their wings than by covering their own face; and conversely they could not cover their own face with them unless with the same they covered the face of God, that is, took from themselves the sight of the face of God. The same is the case with the wings of the feet; for, joining the wings which were below, they covered their feet with them, and by covering these they consequently covered the feet of God, especially as the face was already veiled.
First, then, they veiled their faces out of inmost reverence, because they could not look with unflinching eye on so great a radiance of the divinity; but they veiled their feet out of shame, lest anyone should see their imperfect love and affection, of which the feet are the symbol. So St. Chrysostom, sermon 4 on this vision. Let us also learn, then, with what fear, what shame, and what reverence we ought to approach God in our prayers, with what modesty and devotion to stand by in his praises. For this reason the ancients prayed with covered head and face; whence came the use of the amice, with which the priest about to sacrifice veils and covers his head.
Again, the feet are the symbol of action and execution. They veil their feet, therefore, to signify that, for all their burning zeal to fulfil the will of God, they have a slow and hindered step, though furnished with six wings; as, even if their eyes are most keen, yet against so great a splendour, which flashes from the divine countenance, with face and eyes veiled they confess themselves blind, says Sanchez. Who adds that by the feet are understood not so much the legs (for they stood ready and prepared for the service of God and for flying; they had their feet, therefore, free, not veiled) as the thighs, and especially the private parts (for so among the Hebrews the water of the feet or thighs is called urine). These parts the Seraphim veiled, therefore, to teach how pleasing to him is the habit of a chaste soul, which that people had already in great part lost. For in those years, especially under Achaz, many dishonest things were done both in the temple and in the city.
The Seraphim were here a figure of religious and perfect obedience; for this, as with covered eyes, blind, does not examine the command: again, with covered thighs, that is, it is chaste; it serves the will of another rather than its own, and offers and applies to him hands and feet. It is signified here, then, that a true obedient man ought to be wholly winged, so as to receive and execute the Superior’s commands with winged ear, winged shoulders, winged feet, indeed with winged judgment. Second, the Seraphim also veiled the face and feet of God, in the manner I have said, to signify first that the divinity, and his face, that is the beginning and eternity, and his feet, that is the end and the abyss, are incomprehensible. So St. Cyril. Second, to signify that no one can know the face of God, that is, what God did before the world; nor the feet, that is, what will be after the world, or what God will do; for the middle things which lie between these we only know, says St. Jerome. Third, and best, Rupert: “The face,” he says, “is the divinity of Christ, the feet are his humanity, and the mysteries of the humanity, such as the nativity, the passion, the cross, the resurrection, the ascension,” and so on; as if to say: Both the mystery of the Trinity and of the Incarnation, and of the whole economy of the Word incarnate, is impenetrable even to the Seraphim themselves, and they cannot sufficiently wonder at and receive that on account of its height and splendour, nor this on account of its humility and abjection. Hence in wonder they say, chapter 63: “Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bosra?” and so on; for, as Christ says of himself, Psalm 21: “I am a worm, and no man: the reproach of men, and the outcast of the people.” Timanthes, an excellent painter, when he painted the saddest sacrifice and slaughter of Iphigenia, expressed the tears and grief of the others, but covered the countenance of Agamemnon her father with a veil; because he saw that by nothing could he better express the father’s utmost grief and sorrow than by not expressing and by veiling it. For a similar reason the Seraphim here veil God. So St. Ephrem, treatise On the Passion of the Lord, speaking of Caiphas condemning Christ, and his servant striking him with a blow: “The heavens trembled,” he says, “the foundations of the world were shaken, all the Angels and Archangels were afraid, Gabriel and Michael covered their faces with their wings, the trembling Cherubim hid themselves beneath the wheels, the Seraphim at that hour were seen to strike their wings together, when the minister of iniquity gave the blow to the Lord of majesty. How then did the foundations of the earth not bring forth quaking and trembling, when at that hour they saw their Creator being afflicted with insults?”
And with two they flew.—not covering around the throne of God.
For this would have been light and unseemly; but with wings extended, as about to fly, standing in the same place. Hence they are said to have stood, verse 2. For this posture, first, designates them as ready and agile for every command of God; second, as about to fly, they signify the immense desire by which they are borne to see God, and to plunge themselves into him; third, Sanchez: they poise their wings, he says, that the fire of love with which, near to God, they burn as it were by the movement of the wings is signified the force of most ardent and violent love.
Morally, the two wings by which we fly to God and heaven are intellect and will, meditation and love, contemplation and action. But how do the Seraphim stand and fly at once? Eucherius (or whoever the author is) answers, Questions on the Old Testament, chap. on Isaias, that to stand by God is the same as to fly. Dost thou hasten to God? sit in the quiet and silence of prayer, thou shalt be lifted up, and shalt fly to the God of gods in Sion. Literally the Seraphim stood, that is, were erect, did not sit, but stood with wings expanded as about to fly, as I said.