302 ST. MARK’S REST

and its Sorrow,¹-is the same as ours-not scarlet, but amethyst, and that deep.

121. Then in the spandrils below, come the figures of the four beasts, with this inscription round, for all of them:

“QUAEQUE SUB OBSCURIS

DE CRISTO DICTA FIGURIS

HIS APERIRE DATUR

ET IN HIS, DEUS IPSE NOTATUR.”

“Whatever things under obscure figures have been said of Christ, it is given to these” (creatures) “to open; and in these, Christ Himself is seen.”

A grave saying. Not in the least true of mere Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Christ was never seen in them, though told of by them. But, as the Word by which all things were made,² He is seen in all things made, and in the Poiesis of them: and therefore, when the vision of Ezekiel is repeated to St. John, changed only in that the four creatures are to him more distinct-each with its single aspect, and not each fourfold,-they are full of eyes within, and rest not day nor night,-saying, “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come.”³

122. We repeat the words habitually, in our own most solemn religious service; but we repeat without noticing out of whose mouths they come.

“Therefore” (we say in much self-satisfaction), “with Angels and Archangels, and with all the Company of heaven” (meaning each of us, I suppose, the select Company we expect to get into there), “we laud and magnify,” etc. But it ought to make a difference in our estimate of ourselves, and of our power to say, with our hearts, that God is Holy, if we remember that we join in saying so, not, for the present, with the Angels,-but with the Beasts.

¹ [On the significance of the colour, purple, compare Queen of the Air (Vol. XIX. p. 384).]

² [John i. 1-3.]

³ [Revelation iv. 8 (“which was, and is, and is to come”). Compare below, p. 334; Vol. VII. p. 206; and Vol. XVII. pp. 60, 225, 287.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]