CHARIOT

 First posted March 2018

Yale center for British Art 

 Jerusalem
Plate 46 

 Man sits in his chariot, weak and drowsy. Beside him sits with his emanation, slumped in detached despair. Let's call them Albion and Jerusalem who have been wounded in the battles to preserve their integrity in the onslaught of falsity.

They should be carried by a chariot of fire but instead in their depleted condition, they are in vehicle constructed of three serpents, symbols of demonic intent who also guide their direction. The motive power of their vehicle comes from oxen with human faces, and the manes of lions, and the twisted horns of unicorns.

There are two human faces, both bearded old men who look troubled. Let's call them Urizen and Luvah whose contentions plagued Albion.

The small creatures on the backs of the oxen have wings and heads which could be those of eagles. Their bodies are human. They appear to be messengers giving instructions to the serpents. The scroll is passed to the hand reaching out which is connected to the brain of the human faced being through the unicorn's horn.

The overall impression is of fear and hope. Albion and Jerusalem have no control in the situation. The divisions within them have given power to entities which draw them away from recovery of their wholeness. But they, like Ezekiel's Israel, have been delivered a message which can restore their unity with the Eternal.

The whole chariot scene is surrounded by flames suggesting that it takes place in the Furnace of Affliction and may have a beneficial outcome.

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Ezekiel 1
[5] Also out of the midst thereof came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance; they had the likeness of a man.
...
[10] As for the likeness of their faces, they four had the face of a man, and the face of a lion, on the right side: and they four had the face of an ox on the left side; they four also had the face of an eagle.
[21] When those went, these went; and when those stood, these stood; and when those were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up over against them: for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels.

Ezekiel 2
[2] And the spirit entered into me when he spake unto me, and set me upon my feet, that I heard him that spake unto me.
...
[9] And when I looked, behold, an hand was sent unto me; and, lo, a roll of a book was therein;
[10] And he spread it before me; and it was written within and without: and there was written therein lamentations, and mourning, and woe.

Ezekiel 3
[11] And go, get thee to them of the captivity, unto the children of thy people, and speak unto them, and tell them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear.
[12] Then the spirit took me up, and I heard behind me a voice of a great rushing, saying, Blessed be the glory of the LORD from his place.

Revelation 20
[2] And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,

---

Milton, Plate 1, (E 95)

     "Bring me my Bow of burning gold:
     Bring me my Arrows of desire:                     
     Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!
     Bring me my Chariot of fire!

     I will not cease from Mental Fight,
     Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
     Till we have built Jerusalem,                     
     In Englands green & pleasant Land."

Jerusalem, Plate 36 [40], (E 182)
"They have perswaded him of horrible falshoods!
They have sown errors over all his fruitful fields!              

The Twenty-four heard! they came trembling on watry chariots.
Borne by the Living Creatures of the third procession
Of Human Majesty, the Living Creatures wept aloud as they
Went along Albions roads, till they arriv'd at Albions House.

O! how the torments of Eternal Death, waited on Man:     
And the loud-rending bars of the Creation ready to burst:
That the wide world might fly from its hinges, & the immortal mansion
Of Man, for ever be possess'd by monsters of the deeps:
And Man himself become a Fiend, wrap'd in an endless curse,
Consuming and consum'd for-ever in flames of Moral Justice."

Jerusalem, Plate 55, (E 205)
"(& their Words stood in Chariots in array
Curbing their Tygers with golden bits & bridles of silver & ivory)"      

Jerusalem, Plate 98, (E 257)
"The Four Living Creatures Chariots of Humanity Divine Incomprehensible
In beautiful Paradises expand These are the Four Rivers of Paradise   
And the Four Faces of Humanity fronting the Four Cardinal Points
Of Heaven going forward forward irresistible from Eternity to Eternity"

Jerusalem, Plate 98, (E 258)
"And I heard Jehovah speak 
Terrific from his Holy Place & saw the Words of the Mutual Covenant Divine
On Chariots of gold & jewels with Living Creatures starry & flaming
With every Colour, Lion, Tyger, Horse, Elephant, Eagle Dove, Fly, Worm,
And the all wondrous Serpent clothed in gems & rich array Humanize
In the Forgiveness of Sins according to the Covenant of Jehovah."

Vision of Last Judgment, (E 560)
"If the Spectator could Enter into these Images in his
Imagination approaching them on the Fiery Chariot of his
Contemplative Thought"

Vision of Last Judgment, (E 560)
   By the side of Seth is Elijah he comprehends all the
Prophetic Characters he is seen on his fiery Chariot bowing
before the throne of the Saviour.

Letters, To Hayley, (E 714)
Happinesses have
wings and wheels; miseries  are leaden legged and their whole
employment is to clip the wings  and to take off the wheels of
our chariots.  We determine,  therefore, to be happy and do all
that we can, tho' not all that  we would."

Jerusalem, Plate 96, (E 256)
"So Albion spoke & threw himself into the Furnaces of affliction 
All was a Vision, all a Dream: the Furnaces became
Fountains of Living Waters Howing from the Humanity Divine
And all the Cities of Albion rose from their Slumbers, and All
The Sons & Daughters of Albion on soft clouds Waking from Sleep
Soon all around remote the Heavens burnt with flaming fires    
And Urizen & Luvah & Tharmas & Urthona arose into
Albions Bosom: Then Albion stood before Jesus in the Clouds
Of Heaven Fourfold among the Visions of God in Eternity" 

EZEKIEL'S VISION

 

Wikipedia Commons 

Boston Museum

Ezekiel's Vision

This post is from Chapter 6 of Ram Horn' with Gold.

Ezekiel

       If a poll were taken to choose the most obscure of the major books of the Bible, Ezekiel in the Old Testament and Revelation in the New might win by a wide margin. Strangely enough these very books seemed to mean the most to Blake. Their meanings are largely symbolic; Blake adopted their symbols and strenuously commented upon their meanings.

       

In his major work, 'Jerusalem', Blake took a great deal from Ezekiel: the structural format, the oratorical style, the dialectic of judgment and grace. But he used Ezekiel's style and material to refute Ezekiel's vision of a jealous and punishing God.

       

The first chapter of Ezekiel contains his definitive epiphany, the encounter with God that initiated and sustained his prophetic activity. The vision of the four living creatures, the wheels, the fiery chariot, all are the trappings of the Shekinah, the Glory of God. This vision originally empowered Ezekiel to prophesy; it recurred throughout his prophetic life.

       

In a climactic scene shortly before the destruction of Jerusalem the prophet saw it hovering over the Temple and departing (read Ezekiel 10 with special attention to verse 18). Years later he saw it when returning to Jerusalem as the liberated pilgrims arrived from Babylon. (Ezekiel 43)

Ezekiel 10

[14] And every one had four faces: the first face was the face of a cherub, and the second face was the face of a man, and the third the face of a lion, and the fourth the face of an eagle.
[15] And the cherubims were lifted up. This is the living creature that I saw by the river of Chebar.
[16] And when the cherubims went, the wheels went by them: and when the cherubims lifted up their wings to mount up from the earth, the same wheels also turned not from beside them.
[17] When they stood, these stood; and when they were lifted up, these lifted up themselves also: for the spirit of the living creature was in them.
[18] Then the glory of the LORD departed from off the threshold of the house, and stood over the cherubims.
[19] And the cherubims lifted up their wings, and mounted up from the earth in my sight: when they went out, the wheels also were beside them, and every one stood at the door of the east gate of the LORD's house; and the glory of the God of Israel was over them above.

Ezekiel 43

[1] Afterward he brought me to the gate, even the gate that looketh toward the east:
[2] And, behold, the glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the east: and his voice was like a noise of many waters: and the earth shined with his glory.
[3] And it was according to the appearance of the vision which I saw, even according to the vision that I saw when I came to destroy the city: and the visions were like the vision that I saw by the river Chebar; and I fell upon my face.
[4] And the glory of the LORD came into the house by the way of the gate whose prospect is toward the east.
[5] So the spirit took me up, and brought me into the inner court; and, behold, the glory of the LORD filled the house.
[6] And I heard him speaking unto me out of the house; and the man stood by me.
[7] And he said unto me, Son of man, the place of my throne, and the place of the soles of my feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel for ever, and my holy name, shall the house of Israel no more defile, neither they, nor their kings, by their whoredom, nor by the carcases of their kings in their high places.

 Blake took Ezekiel's living creatures (zoas in Greek) as the subject of his epic poem, 'The Four Zoas'. He humanized the Zoas and enacted through them the divisive tendencies of the human psyche which have led to the fracture and fall of Mankind. With their fall Blake's Zoas became the "rulers of the darkness of this world". As you study 4Z, keeping always in mind the biblical source, you become aware that it all relates to Ezekiel's vision of God.

       

The striving found in 4Z was interrupted by the Moment of Grace. This led to a radical reorientation of Blake's theology. He didn't change his mind about Ezekiel's God, but he met a new and more loving God in the person of Jesus. In 'Jerusalem' he gave the most overt and candid evaluation of the relationship between these two visions. The African American spiritual has it that Ezekiel saw the wheel. Here, in the language of Old Testament prophecy, Blake tells us what the Wheel has meant to Mankind:

       Plate 77 of 'Jerusalem' might well be considered Blake's valedictory: he tells us pretty plainly the meaning of true religion:

"I stood among my valleys of the south

And saw a flame of fire, even as a Wheel
Of fire surrounding all the heaven: it went
From west to east, against the current of
Creation, and devour'd all things in its loud
Fury & thundering course round heaven & earth.
By it the Sun was roll'd into an orb,
By it the Moon faded into a globe
Travelling thro' the night; for, from its dire
And restless fury, Man himself shrunk up
Into a little root a fathom long.
And I asked a Watcher & a Holy-one
Its Name; he answered: "It is the Wheel of Religion."
I wept & said: "Is this the law of Jesus,
"This terrible devouring sword turning every way?"
He answer'd: "Jesus died because he strove
"Against the current of this Wheel; its Name
"Is Caiaphas, the dark Preacher of Death,
"Of sin, of sorrow & of punishment:
"Opposing Nature! It is Natural Religion;
"But Jesus is the bright Preacher of Life
"Creating Nature from this fiery Law
"By self-denial & forgiveness of Sin.
"Go therefore, cast out devils in Christ's name,
"Heal thou the sick of spiritual disease,

"Pity the evil, for thou art not sent
"To smite with terror & with punishments
"Those that are sick, like to the Pharisees
"Crucifying & encompassing sea & land
"For proselytes to tyranny & wrath;

"But to the Publicans & harlots go,

"Teach them True Happiness, but let no curse
"Go forth out of thy mouth to blight their peace;
"For Hell is open'd to Heaven: thine eyes beheld
"The dungeons burst & the Prisoners set free."

      

 Here Blake with unparalleled eloquence has set forth the opposition between the God of Wrath and the God of Mercy, the dark Preacher of Death and the bright Preacher of Life. Mankind in every age has turned Ezekiel's wheel into a juggernaut to enforce a worldly solidarity under the banner of priest and king. And every age has had its dissenters who strove against it and were all too often crushed.

 

Stones of Fire

Updated from Oct 2009.

A very prominent symbol in the Bible, 'stones' occurs 161 times in the Old and New Testaments. One that Blake especially loved accrues thus in Ezekiel:

Ezekiel 28
13 Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.
14 Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.

The covering cherub! the stones of fire!

Blake may be best understood as an expander of the Bible. He made very good use of the two symbols mentioned above, and amplified the meanings used by Ezekiel:

Stones of Fire appears in the Prologue of The Gates of Paradise:
 
"Mutual Forgiveness of each Vice
Such are the Gates of Paradise
Against the Accusers chief desire
Who walkd among the Stones of Fire" (E 258)

British Museum  Gates of Paradise, For the Sexes 
Prologue

To get a clue of the meaning we go to 1 Kings 18:38:
 
"Then the fire of the LORD fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench."

This is from the account of Elijah's contest with the prophets of Baal.

We notice how the fire consumed the stone. We know the fire was from God, the stone a symbol of matter: Spirit burns up matter. That's Blake's message in a nutshell: spirit takes the place of matter. In our pilgrimage through life the material is gradually superseded by the spirit (God, Heaven).

'Stones of fire' represents a conjunction of matter and spirit. Ezekiel was speaking of a brilliant, successful potentate of his day, who had achieved greatly but who would be brought down by God. One such as was Lucifer, associated by Ezekiel and by Blake with the Covering Cherub (another name for Satan or the Selfhood).

Although Blake's source for the Covering Cherub was Ezekiel, Genesis 3:23  might have been Ezekiel's source:
"So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life."

In The Marriage of Heaven and Hell Blake had this to say about the Covering Cherub: 
"The ancient tradition that the world will be consumed in fire 
at the end of six thousand years is true. as I have heard from 
Hell.

   For the cherub with his flaming sword is hereby commanded to 
leave his guard at the tree of life, and when he does, the whole 
creation will be consumed, and appear infinite. and holy whereas
it now  appears finite & corrupt." (Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 14)

 This shows what Blake thought of the biblical story of the Fall. In his myth the Fall occurs when man is kicked out of Eden (or just falls asleep), but the Return is set in motion also. In all versions of Blake's myth the end of the story is a happy event; the literary heads might call it a Romance rather than a Tragedy.

There's a great deal more to be said about the story of the Fall, especially about the Tree of Good and Evil; I'll tell you more about the Tree at a later date.
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IN MY DREAMS

Larry posted this to another blog on September 22, 2010.

British Museum I take away from thee the Desire of thine Eyes

1794

Catherine Blake said her only problem with her husband was that he spent too much time in Heaven. In our dreams we may be closer to Blake's Heaven than is possible in our waking hours. Some day we may realize that where we live now is largely vaporous.

Dream sequence:

The other day I had dinner with Blake, and I asked him if he had said all he had to say by 1828. He said "'pretty much', 'pretty much', especially if you've experienced all the words and pictures that I left behind."

I asked him if there was anything more he would like to tell us now from his present life. He said, "Oh yes, a great deal; but I've experienced nothing that your corporeal mind would find meaningful." He went on to say that where he now lived and what he now knew was separated from me by a great chasm, much like the one between Lazarus in Abraham's bosom and Dives.

He reminded me of Paul's experience in the Third Heaven where "He heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter".

I asked Blake if he had recently come in contact with Isaiah or Ezekiel. He said that Ezekiel and he had become bosom buddies, "We laughed together over the peculiar directive that Ezekiel had received from God." He also told Ezekiel that that affair had meant a lot to him and given him a vivid awareness of the "perception of the infinite". (MHH13, E39)

Blake went on to say that in due course, at the acceptable time, he would be glad to introduce me to Ezekiel or to anyone else I desired to meet. He also would arrange a tennis match for me with Kenny Rosewall.

I was just about to make further requests when the alarm clock sounded, and I was aroused from my Heavenly Vision or perhaps I went back to the corporeal sleep.
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BLAKE'S MESSAGE V

Wikimedia Commons  Ezekiel's Vision

Bloom puts Blake's prophetic message in the context of the Old Testament prophets, whose imagery is repeated in the New Testament Book of Revelation. Bloom sees Blake recreating for his own time and in his own terms the message delivered by Isaiah, Ezekiel and the prophetic voice passed down through John of Patmos and Milton.

The prophet presents the eternal choice between turning toward God or continuing to follow the enemies of God. Blake utilises a multitude of images in an attempt to communicate with men in whatever state they were to be found. Blake was following the lead of Paul in First Corinthians:


First Corinthians 9
[19] For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more.
[20] And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law;
[21] To them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law.
[22] To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.
[23] And this I do for the gospel's sake, that I might be partaker thereof with you.

Harold Bloom, speaking of Jerusalem, states in Blake's Apocalypse on Page 366:

"From this opposition there emerges, in the fourth and last chapter, a clarifying confrontation of error and truth, which causes a Last Judgment to begin.

As a general principle of organization, a series of gradually sharpening antitheses leading to a necessity for moral choice, this resembles the pattern of the major prophetic books of the Bible...The books of Ezekiel and the other prophets are essentially collections of public oratory, poems of admonition delivered to a wavering people. The poems are interspersed in chronicles that deliberately mix history and vision, the way events were and the way the prophet fears they will turn out to be if they continue as they are going, or hopes hopes they will emerge if the people will realize that they are at the turning and can control events by a change of spirit.

Like Isaiah and Ezekiel, Blake believed that he had the decisive power of the eternal moment of human choice as a direct gift and trust from the Divine, and he seems to have imitated the organization of their books even as he believed his election as a prophet was in direct succession of their own. Isaiah and Ezekiel, like Amos before them renewed the vision of Elijah. Blake himself had see himself as renewing the vision of the English Elijah or Rintrah, Milton. With Milton firmly within him, Blake turns in Jerusalem to the re-creation in English terms of the work of Hebraic prophecy...The principles which form and guide Blake, which he develops with enormous skill, are the literary principles implicit in Ezekiel and the other prophetic books of the Bible. Jerusalem will seem much less of a poetic sport if read in their company."

Marriage of Heaven & Hell, Plate 12,  (E 39)
 "Then Ezekiel said. The philosophy of the east taught the first 
principles of human perception     some nations held one
principle for  the origin & some another, we of Israel taught
that the Poetic Genius (as  you now call it) was the first
principle and all the others merely  derivative, which was the
cause of our despising the Priests & Philosophers  of other
countries, and prophecying that all Gods would at last be
proved. to originate in ours & to be the tributaries of the
Poetic  Genius, it was this. that our great poet King David
desired so fervently  & invokes so patheticly, saying by this he
conquers enemies & governs kingdoms; and we so loved our God.
that we cursed in his name all  the deities of surrounding
nations, and asserted that they had rebelled; from these opinions
the vulgar came to think that all nations would at last be
subject to the jews.
   This said he, like all firm perswasions, is come to pass, for all 
nations believe the jews code and worship the jews god, and what
greater subjection can be"

Jerusalem, Plate 12, (E 156)
"And the Four Points are thus beheld in Great Eternity
West, the Circumference: South, the Zenith: North,               
The Nadir: East, the Center, unapproachable for ever.
These are the four Faces towards the Four Worlds of Humanity
In every Man. Ezekiel saw them by Chebars flood.
And the Eyes are the South, and the Nostrils are the East.
And the Tongue is the West, and the Ear is the North."    

Vision of Last Judgment, (E 558)
"Hell is opend beneath her Seat on the Left hand. beneath her
feet is a flaming Cavern in which is seen the Great Red Dragon
with Seven heads & ten Horns [who] he has Satans book
of Accusations lying on the rock open before him  he is bound
in chains by Two strong demons they are Gog & Magog who have
been compelld to subdue their Master Ezekiel XXXVIIIc 8v with
their Hammer & Tongs about to new Create the Seven Headed
Kingdoms."  

Ezekiel 38
[8] After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them.   

Ezekiel 38
[2] Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him,
[3] And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal:
[14] Therefore, son of man, prophesy and say unto Gog, Thus saith the Lord GOD; In that day when my people of Israel dwelleth safely, shalt thou not know it?
[16] And thou shalt come up against my people of Israel, as a cloud to cover the land; it shall be in the latter days, and I will bring thee against my land, that the heathen may know me, when I shall be sanctified in thee, O Gog, before their eyes.
[18] And it shall come to pass at the same time when Gog shall come against the land of Israel, saith the Lord GOD, that my fury shall come up in my face.  

Revelation 20
[8] And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. 
 
 Wikipedia:
  "Ezekiel's Gog from Magog was a symbol of the evil darkness of the north and the powers hostile to God, but in Revelation, Gog and Magog have no geographic location, and instead represent the nations of the world, banded together for the final assault on Christ and those who follow him." 

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BLAKE & COVERING CHERUB

A symbol is not what it symbolises. It is serious error to confuse the reality with the symbol which communicates or mediates it. Blake was cautious about allowing symbols to replace the reality they stood for.

The ark of the temple is a case in point. As a primary symbol for the Jews of the presence of God, it became an object of worship itself. Furthermore the worshippers were kept at a distance from the ark which was hidden within veils. Above the arc were positioned two golden cherubim who covered it with their wings. The symbolic meaning of the ark and the cherubim involved the law of God and his mercy as the physical manifestation of his spiritual presence. The physical artifacts became a covering for the numinous. But could the presence of God be localised in these objects which became central to the practice of Hebrew religion?

So we have in the book of Ezekiel, the covering cherub becoming a symbol for the unrighteousness which claims the position of God. Because the prince of Tyrus, blessed with wisdom, wealth and power, claims to be God he is brought down to the depths. He is called the 'covering cherub' as one who, selected by God, covers the Divine presence with his own Selfhood.

Ezekiel 28
[1] The word of the LORD came again unto me, saying,
[2] Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a God, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas; yet thou art a man, and not God, though thou set thine heart as the heart of God:
...
[13] Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.
[14] Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.
[15] Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.
[16] By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.

In Milton the Covering Cherub, the Spectre of Albion, sinking down into the Death of Rome, Babylon and Tyre descends into Generation as Satan or Urizen.

Milton, Plate 9, (E 103)
"Rintrah rear'd up walls of rocks and pourd rivers & moats
Of fire round the walls: columns of fire guard around
Between Satan and Palamabron in the terrible darkness.

And Satan not having the Science of Wrath, but only of Pity:
Rent them asunder, and wrath was left to wrath, & pity to pity.
He sunk down a dreadful Death, unlike the slumbers of Beulah

The Separation was terrible: the Dead was repos'd on his Couch
Beneath the Couch of Albion, on the seven mou[n]tains of Rome
In the whole place of the Covering Cherub, Rome Babylon & Tyre.
His Spectre raging furious descended into its Space
PLATE 10 [11]
Then Los & Enitharmon knew that Satan is Urizen
Drawn down by Orc & the Shadowy Female into Generation"

Milton, PLATE 37 [41], (E 138)
"All these are seen in Miltons Shadow who is the Covering Cherub
The Spectre of Albion in which the Spectre of Luvah inhabits
In the Newtonian Voids between the Substances of Creation
...
The Heavens are the Cherub, the Twelve Gods are Satan"

Orc begs Jerusalem not to assume the Human Form by weaving Satan for a Covering.

Milton, PLATE 18 [20], (E 111)
"Orc answerd. Take not the Human Form O loveliest. Take not
Terror upon thee! Behold how I am & tremble lest thou also
Consume in my Consummation; but thou maist take a Form
Female & lovely, that cannot consume in Mans consummation
Wherefore dost thou Create & Weave this Satan for a Covering[?]
When thou attemptest to put on the Human Form, my wrath
Burns to the top of heaven against thee in Jealousy & Fear.
Then I rend thee asunder, then I howl over thy clay & ashes
When wilt thou put on the Female Form as in times of old
With a Garment of Pity & Compassion like the Garment of God
His garments are long sufferings for the Children of Men
Jerusalem is his Garment & not thy Covering Cherub O lovely
Shadow of my delight who wanderest seeking for the prey."

Jerusalem, PLATE 89, (E 247)
"Thus was the Covering Cherub reveald majestic image
Of Selfhood, Body put off, the Antichrist accursed
Coverd with precious stones, a Human Dragon terrible
And bright, stretchd over Europe & Asia gorgeous
In three nights he devourd the rejected corse of death
His Head dark, deadly, in its Brain incloses a reflexion
Of Eden all perverted;"




Image from Rosenbach Museum, Philadelphia
Courtesy of Wikipedia


The Covering Cherub is the image which absorbs all the error and false perceptions which prevent man from understanding that reentry into Eden is possible.
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