Zoomorphic symbols of the Four Evangelists in monuments of Russian literature

Abstract

The object of the analysis are the zoomorphic symbols of the Four Evangelists, presented in miniatures of Medieval monuments of Russian literature. The paper discusses three schemes of linking an Apostle with a symbol and presents iconographic realizations illustrating the scheme of St. Jerome that fairly early became fixed in the iconography of Western Europe and then became the obligatory one also in Russia. According to that scheme, the symbol of St. Matthew is a winged man/angel, St. Mark is symbolised by a lion, St. Luke by a bull/ox, and St. John by an eagle. The presence of animal symbols in images of the Biblical world (The Book of Ezekiel, St. John’s Apocalypse) was a source of many problems for researchers and theologians which they tried to resolve by referring to the Bible. However, the meanings referred to in the paper and hidden behind the symbols of the lion, the eagle and the ox are evidence that they had become cult (demonic) animals much earlier than the start of the Christ Era on the Earth. Their deep rooting in the human mind surely contributed to the use of those most powerful and the most universal symbols of the ancient (pagan) repertoire for the expression of new meanings which could not be expressed in a language intelligible to the common man. The symbols, in this case zoomorphic ones, became the sole specific language of religion at the initial stage of the
Christian history of humanity.