The Prophet Ezekiel, who was active in the sixth century before the birth of Jesus, spoke to his people through visions and metaphors that attempted to describe his wonder for the Divine. Among his most memorable images are the Heavenly messengers he calls the four living creatures, each with four faces; of a human, a lion, an ox and an eagle. They were also equipped with two sets of wings, one set for flying and the other for covering their bodies and with human hands extended beneath the wings. Ezekiel's visions seem bizarre to us today and have inspired innumerable interpretations throughout the centuries, but they were probably not that unusual as symbols of awe to his original readers, who were surrounded by Babylonian statues and murals of marvelous composite creatures such as winged sphinxes and horse- like dragons that illustrated their civilization's own quest to depict the invisible world of the spiritual. The whole exercise left Ezekiel astonished and overwhelmed. (Image from Prints of the Prophets series.)
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