Meditation 23
The Northern Quarter of the Tetramorph
The northern quarter
of the Tetramorph reveals the truth that all evil has its source in
Satan, the huge and red dragon (Rv 12) – but his name is also DEATH. An
aspect of modern theology which rejects the existence of this “master
of darkness” (Ep 6. 12) is of no avail for human beings.
The Bible reveals the north wind of Satan as destructive power of deceptions. The Lord came to Jeremiah and said to him, “ ‘What do you see?” I answered, ‘I see a cooking pot on the boil, with its mouth tilting from the north’ ” (Jr 1. 13).
The north is the place of false revelations of the “angel of light” (2 Cor 11. 14). Few have expressed this fact more vividly as Hildigard from Bingen,
The northern quarter of the Tetramorph is a place of deceits leading negligent souls astray as they do not take notice of the existence of the “fallen guardian cherub” and his black angels. Such souls live in the black tabernacle of human presumptuousness and need much intercession in order to save them from a fate worse than lifeless death. Such souls are paralyzed in the live of grace as they have become stagnant. It is this truth which God reveals above by the fivefold division of the Israelites (Meditation 16) as a prefiguration of the new and spiritual community of the Church. These souls do not turn themselves by whole of their energy to God, and although saved, they will never by bright and shining stars in heaven as His saints and angels, or by the words of Thomas Aquinas,
It is thus consoling to know that the northern quarter of the Tetramorph is under the protection of the archangel Gabriel. The name of Gabriel means “Man of God” and his symbol is a staff. Every soul who looks to this staff will persevere her life in the ice cold winds of the northern quarter, just as when the Israelites in the desert gazed to the bronze serpent.
When the holy fathers choice the Eagle as the emblem of St. John they had in mind that no created and winged creature flies as high as an eagle and in accordance with ancient belief the eagle was the only bird who could gaze straight into the sun. None of the Evangelists spoke in as lofty terms about the Light of the World as St. John who gazed directly into it. He who our Lord Himself named “son of thunder” (Mk 3. 17) as he was obviously in the beginning a uncouth fisherman became thus a humble man of Christ like humility and worthy in order to receive his Revelation in his exile on the island of Patmos.
In the northern quarter it is indeed this Light of the world who blinds the soul and purifies off its sensuous disposition when she gazes at Him as John of the Cross emphasized and thus the soul can proceed further into the Holy,
As a matter of fact the soul goes through such transformation in the northern quarter that she becomes “lovely” as the bride in the Song of Songs (1. 5), an spiritual eagle. This is fully in accordance with the promise of the Holy Spirit,
They sprout wings like eagles as they have learnt to know God in the Holy Spirit or by the words of St. Silouan the Athonite,
This is the mystery of this most precious emblem of St. John the Evangelist: it makes us a thoroughfare of the glory of the Holy Spirit and thus the words of the Our Father are accomplished: In heaven as on earth. When the soul becomes in an authentic way a heaven for God “where He can walk in the garden of the heart in the cool of the day” (Gn 3. 8) in the soft breeze of the Spirit's movements it has fulfilled its role as God intended it to be “before the world was made” (Ep 1. 4). Thus God fulfills his predestination by giving the soul a single heart by its purity,
God gives the human being a pure heart in order to make it able to dwell in His Sanctuary: “Who shall take a stand in his holy place? The clean of hands and pure of hearts, whose heart is not on vanities” (Ps 24. 3, 4) in order to make it able to “taste and see how good” (Ps 34.8) He becomes the beatitude of the soul because she will see him in the purity of her heart, “BLESSED ARE THE PURE IN HEART: THEY SHALL SEE GOD” (Mt 5. 8). This is the heart of the Church itself and the heaven of the soul, “the smallest of all seeds, but when it is grown it is the biggest of shrubs and becomes a tree” (Mt 13. 32), an acacia wood as the building material to raise His Sanctuary in our own hearts.
This heaven of the soul is like a “mustard seed” (Mt 13. 31) which in spite of this contents all eternity, totum simul or all time and space in one point, what is referred to by the Greek word aeon or the “coming age.” The word sheds light on a reality which is between the eternity in its fullest sense as aïdiotis and the time sense of the fleshly nature or chronos – an existence of becoming in time and space. The Danish philosopher Sören Kierkegaard said that the sensuous man is unable to live in the moment of passing time. In his eyes the moment is empty: without presence. It is only in the live of grace of the Uncreated Light where the soul is able to discern the Time of Christ, the time which He gives her participation in as “the high priest of all the blessings which were to come” (Heb 9. 11), or what the Bible calls the “coming age.”
This age is expressed by the Greek word ta mellonta, the age of Him who has a life of “no beginning or end” (Heb 7. 3). The rich farmer in the parable was unable to live in the redeemed time of Christ or in the now of passing time – this window to eternity – as he was fettered by the profits of the past and hopes of still further gains in the unknown future (Lk 12. 16-20). How numerous modern men do not suffer from such an absence and alienation, “For wherever your treasure is, there will be your heart” (Mt 6. 21).
Such a soul is unable to say: “But our homeland is in heaven” (Ph 3. 20). In the light of the New Testament the true meaning of time is exposed as three levels of being.
The Bible reveals the north wind of Satan as destructive power of deceptions. The Lord came to Jeremiah and said to him, “ ‘What do you see?” I answered, ‘I see a cooking pot on the boil, with its mouth tilting from the north’ ” (Jr 1. 13).
The north is the place of false revelations of the “angel of light” (2 Cor 11. 14). Few have expressed this fact more vividly as Hildigard from Bingen,
[God said]: I who
live in the furthest limits of the earth, reveal my works in the east,
south and the west. But the fourth capital heading, the north, I left
empty. There no sun or moon shines. This is the place of hell outside
the universal ordinance where no floor nor ceiling can be seen. It is
here were darkness prevails, but this darkness is also a part of my
sublime light. How could the radiance of my light be discerned if the
darkness did not exist? How could anyone discern the light if the
darkness did not exist? How could anyone discern the darkness, if not
because of the glory of the servants of my light? If this were not the
case my omnipotence were not perfect. Thus it would be impossible to
describe my wondrous works. [1]
The northern quarter of the Tetramorph is a place of deceits leading negligent souls astray as they do not take notice of the existence of the “fallen guardian cherub” and his black angels. Such souls live in the black tabernacle of human presumptuousness and need much intercession in order to save them from a fate worse than lifeless death. Such souls are paralyzed in the live of grace as they have become stagnant. It is this truth which God reveals above by the fivefold division of the Israelites (Meditation 16) as a prefiguration of the new and spiritual community of the Church. These souls do not turn themselves by whole of their energy to God, and although saved, they will never by bright and shining stars in heaven as His saints and angels, or by the words of Thomas Aquinas,
The angel is not a
compound of different natures, so that the inclinations of the one
thwarts or retards the tendency of the other; as happen in man, in whom
the movements of his intellectual part is either retarded or thwarted
by the inclination of his sensitive part. But when there is nothing to
retard or thwart it, nature is moved with its whole energy . . . The
same thing happens in men, since greater grace and glory are bestowed
according to the greater earnest of their turning to God. [2]
It is thus consoling to know that the northern quarter of the Tetramorph is under the protection of the archangel Gabriel. The name of Gabriel means “Man of God” and his symbol is a staff. Every soul who looks to this staff will persevere her life in the ice cold winds of the northern quarter, just as when the Israelites in the desert gazed to the bronze serpent.
When the holy fathers choice the Eagle as the emblem of St. John they had in mind that no created and winged creature flies as high as an eagle and in accordance with ancient belief the eagle was the only bird who could gaze straight into the sun. None of the Evangelists spoke in as lofty terms about the Light of the World as St. John who gazed directly into it. He who our Lord Himself named “son of thunder” (Mk 3. 17) as he was obviously in the beginning a uncouth fisherman became thus a humble man of Christ like humility and worthy in order to receive his Revelation in his exile on the island of Patmos.
In the northern quarter it is indeed this Light of the world who blinds the soul and purifies off its sensuous disposition when she gazes at Him as John of the Cross emphasized and thus the soul can proceed further into the Holy,
Hence the dark night
with its aridities and voids is the means to the knowledge of God and
self. However, the knowledge given in this night is not as plenteous
and abundant as that of the other night of the spirit for the knowledge
of this night is as the foundation of the other . [3]
As a matter of fact the soul goes through such transformation in the northern quarter that she becomes “lovely” as the bride in the Song of Songs (1. 5), an spiritual eagle. This is fully in accordance with the promise of the Holy Spirit,
But those who hope in
Yahweh will regain their strength, they will sprouts wings like eagles
(Is 40. 31).
They sprout wings like eagles as they have learnt to know God in the Holy Spirit or by the words of St. Silouan the Athonite,
We know the Lord: He
has made Himself manifest to us in the Holy Spirit, and the soul knows
Him, and is joyful and glad and at ease, and in this lies our holy
life. The Lord said, “Where I am, there shall also my servant be, and
he shall see my glory.’ But we do not understand the Scriptures. Now
when the Holy Spirit teaches, everything becomes comprehensible and the
soul feels as if she were in heaven, for the same Spirit is in heaven
and on earth, in the Holy Scriptures, and in the souls of those who
love God. Without the Holy Spirit men go astray, and though they study
endlessly they cannot learn to know God and have not discovered what it
is to rest in Him. [4]
This is the mystery of this most precious emblem of St. John the Evangelist: it makes us a thoroughfare of the glory of the Holy Spirit and thus the words of the Our Father are accomplished: In heaven as on earth. When the soul becomes in an authentic way a heaven for God “where He can walk in the garden of the heart in the cool of the day” (Gn 3. 8) in the soft breeze of the Spirit's movements it has fulfilled its role as God intended it to be “before the world was made” (Ep 1. 4). Thus God fulfills his predestination by giving the soul a single heart by its purity,
I shall give them a
single heart and I shall put a new spirit in them, I shall remove the
heart of stone from their bodies and give them a heart of flesh (Ezk
11. 19).
God gives the human being a pure heart in order to make it able to dwell in His Sanctuary: “Who shall take a stand in his holy place? The clean of hands and pure of hearts, whose heart is not on vanities” (Ps 24. 3, 4) in order to make it able to “taste and see how good” (Ps 34.8) He becomes the beatitude of the soul because she will see him in the purity of her heart, “BLESSED ARE THE PURE IN HEART: THEY SHALL SEE GOD” (Mt 5. 8). This is the heart of the Church itself and the heaven of the soul, “the smallest of all seeds, but when it is grown it is the biggest of shrubs and becomes a tree” (Mt 13. 32), an acacia wood as the building material to raise His Sanctuary in our own hearts.
This heaven of the soul is like a “mustard seed” (Mt 13. 31) which in spite of this contents all eternity, totum simul or all time and space in one point, what is referred to by the Greek word aeon or the “coming age.” The word sheds light on a reality which is between the eternity in its fullest sense as aïdiotis and the time sense of the fleshly nature or chronos – an existence of becoming in time and space. The Danish philosopher Sören Kierkegaard said that the sensuous man is unable to live in the moment of passing time. In his eyes the moment is empty: without presence. It is only in the live of grace of the Uncreated Light where the soul is able to discern the Time of Christ, the time which He gives her participation in as “the high priest of all the blessings which were to come” (Heb 9. 11), or what the Bible calls the “coming age.”
This age is expressed by the Greek word ta mellonta, the age of Him who has a life of “no beginning or end” (Heb 7. 3). The rich farmer in the parable was unable to live in the redeemed time of Christ or in the now of passing time – this window to eternity – as he was fettered by the profits of the past and hopes of still further gains in the unknown future (Lk 12. 16-20). How numerous modern men do not suffer from such an absence and alienation, “For wherever your treasure is, there will be your heart” (Mt 6. 21).
Such a soul is unable to say: “But our homeland is in heaven” (Ph 3. 20). In the light of the New Testament the true meaning of time is exposed as three levels of being.
(a) First as an eternity or
totum simul of God or
“simultaneous presence of all time in reality as
known to God, who alone has neither origin nor end, and who therefore
is alone eternal in the full sense.” [5]
(b) Secondly as the totum simul of created beings, both of the celestial hierarchies and human beings who have attained this “coming age.”
(c) In third place as a being or state of consciousness in the natural time sense of the flesh.
(b) Secondly as the totum simul of created beings, both of the celestial hierarchies and human beings who have attained this “coming age.”
(c) In third place as a being or state of consciousness in the natural time sense of the flesh.
In order to shed
still further light on this mystery we must again seek help by the holy
images where “God has noted and settled all that He would do, the
unchanging future events before they came to pass,” (John of Damascus) as it is in the
Tetramorph where this transformation of this time sense of the flesh takes place
under the Emblem of the Eagle. Thus and only thus the soul can and will
enter the Holy. just as the apostles on the day of Pentecost
prefigured by the second entrance of the Sanctuary of the Tabernacle.
This is the mystery of the northern quarter of the Tetramorph in the
light of a living experience in faith and thus the four creatures at
the heavenly Throne of Grace appear in their power on earth because “when the Holy Spirit teaches, everything becomes comprehensible and
the soul feels as if she were in heaven, for the same Spirit is in
heaven and on earth,” as St. Silouan stated above.
[1].
Patrologia Latina, 91. 197,
812B. Quotation in Physics of Angels,
p. 151.
[2]. Summa theologiae, I. 62, 6.
[3]. Dark Night 12, 6.
[4]. Wisdom from Mount Athos, p. 44.
[5]. Philokalia II, p. 379.
[2]. Summa theologiae, I. 62, 6.
[3]. Dark Night 12, 6.
[4]. Wisdom from Mount Athos, p. 44.
[5]. Philokalia II, p. 379.