St. Luke: Winged Ox, Passion.—The form of the ox, the beast of sacrifice, fitly sets forth the sacred office, and also the atonement for sin by blood, on which, in his gospel, he particularly dwells.
St. John: The Eagle, Ascension.—The eagle was allotted to St. John because, as the eagle soars towards heaven, he soared in spirit upwards to the heaven of heavens to bring back to earth revelation of sublime and awful mysteries.
Independently of their reference to the four evangelists these figures sometimes refer to the Incarnation, the Passion, the Resurrection, and the Ascension.
Sedulius, a priest and poet of the fifth century, says much the same in the following verse:
Hoc Matthæus agens, Hominem generaliter implet:
Marcus ut alta fremit vox per deserta Leonis:
Jura sacerdotis Lucas tenet ore Juvenci:
More volens Aquilæ verbo petit astra Johannes.
The Lion of St. Mark.—In the ninth century the rapidly rising State of Venice was dignified by the reception of the relics of St. Mark, transported thither from Alexandria. “Few patron saints,” says Theodore A. Buckley, “enjoy a greater popularity, whether socially or locally exemplified. His lion was emblazoned on the standard of the Republic, and stamped on the current coins, while his name was identified with the pride, the power, and glory of all Venice.”[5]
Emblems of the evangelists do not often appear in heraldry.
Walter Reynolds, Archbishop of Canterbury, according to a manuscript at Lambeth (executed for Archbishop Laud), bore azure on a cross or, between the symbols of the evangelists of the last, four lions rampant gules.
The Freemasons appear to use a similar coat of arms upon their seal, viz., a cross between the emblems of the four evangelists, and for supporters two cherubims, all proper.
