Wheels Within Wheels Ezekiels Merkabah WILLIAM BLAKE

7/30/2019 Wheels Within Wheels Ezekiels Merkabah WILLIAM BLAKE

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Wheels within Wheels

William Blake and the Ezekiels

Merkabah in Text and Image


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The Pre Marquette

Lecture in Theology

2007

Wheels within Wheels

William Blake and the Ezekiels

Merkabah in Text and Image

Christopher Rowland


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2007Marquette University PressMilwaukee WI 53201-3141

All rights reserved.

Manufactured in the United States of AmericaMember, Association of American University Presses

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Rowland, Christopher, 1947-Wheels within wheels : William Blake and the Ezekiels

merkabah in text and image / Christopher Rowland.p. cm. (Te Pre Marquette lecture in theology ; 2007)

Includes bibliographical references.ISBN 978-0-87462-587-5 (hardcover : alk. paper)1. Blake, William, 1757-1827Criticism and interpretation.

2. Blake, William, 1757-1827Religion. 3. Bible. O.. EzekielICriticism, interpretation, etc. 4. Merkava. 5. Teology inliterature. 6. Prophecies in literature. 7. BibleIn literature 8.Myth in literature. 9. Cabala in literature. I. itle.PR4148.R4R69 2007

821.7dc22 2007002641

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of theAmerican National Standard for Information Sciences

Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.


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Foreword

Te Joseph A. Auchter Family Endowment Fundgenerously supports the Pre Marquette Lecture inTeology. Te Fund was established as a memorial totheir ather by the children o Milwaukee-native Jo-seph A. Auchter (1894-1986), a banker, paper-indus-

try executive, and long-time supporter o education.Te lecture presented here is the thirty-eighth in

the series, inaugurated in 1969, that commemoratesthe missions and explorations o Pre Jacques Mar-quette, S.J. (1637-1675). Te lecture is ofered an-nually under the auspices o Marquette Universitys

Department o Teology.

Christopher Charles Rowland

Christopher Charles Rowland is Dean Irelands Pro-essor o the Exegesis o Holy Scripture and Fellow


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6 Rowland Wheels within Wheels

o Queens College, in Englands prestigious OxordUniversity. Born 21 May 1947, he was educated atDoncaster Grammar School and Christs College,Cambridge. At Cambridge, he earned the B.A. Te-ology Class I (Teological ripos Part II with He-brew Prize) in 1969, and a Class I Teological riposPart III (New estament) in 1970. He was awardedthe M.A. Degree in 1973, and in 1975 the Ph.D., or

a dissertation entitled Te Infuence o the First Chap-ter o Ezekiel on Judaism and Early Christianity.

From 1974 to 1979, Rowland was Lecturer in Re-ligious Studies (with special responsibility or Newestament studies) at the University o Newcastleupon yne. From 1979 to 1991, he served as Fellow

and Dean o Jesus College, and University Lecturerin Divinity, both at the University o Cambridge.Since that time, he has held the Dean Irelands pro-essorship at Oxord University. From 1998 to 2000,he served as chair o the Faculty Board o Teology.

Rowland has published widely across the felds o

New estament and Christian origins, where he hashad a special interest in apocalyptic, and liberationtheology. His many books and articles testiy to thebroad range o his interests, including in recent yearsa number o important contributions to the emerg-ing felds o the history o biblical exegesis, as well asthe reception history o the Bible. Te many bookshe has written or edited include: Te Open Heaven:A Study o Apocalyptic in Judaism and Early Chris-tianity (1982); Christian Origins: An Account o the


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Foreword 7

Setting and Character of the Most Important Messi-anic Sect of Judaism (1985; revised edition, 2002;)Radical Christianity: A Reading of Recovery (1988);Liberating Exegesis: Te Challenge of Liberation Te-ology to Biblical Studies (1989, with Mark Corner);Reelation: Te Apocalypse of Jesus Christ(2004, withJudith Kovacs); Liberation Teology UK (1995, ed-ited with John Vincent); Understanding Studying

Reading: New estament Essays in Honour of JohnAshton (1998, edited with Crispin Fletcher-Louis);Te Cambridge Companion to Liberation Teology(edited 1999);Radical Christian Writings: A Reader(2002, edited with Andrew Bradstock); and Apoca-lyptic in History and radition (2002, edited with

John Barton).Not content with published contributions to the

feld, Rowland has also been very active both in men-toring the work o younger scholars, and in coop-eration with scholars in Europe, the United States,and South America. At Oxord, he ounded an in-

terdisciplinary seminar in the history o biblical in-terpretation, with the express intention o examiningnot only texts, but also a wide range o other media,including art and music. Tis particular interest willbe put nicely on display in todays Pre MarquetteLecture. Rowland is also an editor or the BlackwellBible Commentaries, a new series ocused on theimpact history o biblical texts. During a sabbaticalleave during the present academic year, he is at workon a book on William Blakes biblical exegesis, tenta-


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8 Rowland Wheels within Wheels

tively entitledBlake and the Bible, for Yale UniversityPress.

Mickey L. MattoxTe Conversion of St. Paul, 2007


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Wheels within WheelsWilliam Blake and the Ezekiels

Merkabah in ext and Image

T y o u f -vy o o , po, v, -y pop. H ,popuy o Ju, v co uoc o o o o

pop. T o, o Pc o o, :

A o c upo ou ?A oy L o GoO p pu ?

A Couc DvS o upo ou cou ?A Ju u Ao Sc ?

y o o u o! y Ao o ! y Sp: O cou uo! y Co o f!

o c o F,No y So p y ,


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10 Christopher Rowland

ill we have built Jerusalem,In Englands green & pleasant Land.

Would to God that all the Lords people wereProphets.Numbers xi. 29V.

Te our stanzas may be amiliar. What will be lessso is the act that Blake penned the words Wouldto God that all the Lords people were Prophets un-derlining the importance o prophecy or all people.Tis was not a specialist vocation, or Every hon-est man is a prophet; he utters his opinion both o

private and public matters. Prophecy is not aboutprediction, but about speaking out, particularly in

the ways that the biblical prophets spoke against in-iquity, injustice and oppression.

Tis lecture marks the anniversary o Blakes birthby considering the way in which this remarkable fg-ure in English literature and religion looked back tohis prophetic predecessors such as Ezekiel, as both

his inspiration and his spiritual ancestor. In his Mar-riage o Heaven and Hell, Blake imagines sitting withEzekiel and asking him questions about his prophet-ic ministry. Tis indicates that among the prophetsEzekiel was crucial. Tis is borne out by Blakes writ-ing and his painting. Te lecture today will consider

aspects o this and also show what an important in-heritance o interest and ascination in the prophecyo Ezekiel there was or Blake to draw on.


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Wheels within Wheels 11

1. Merkabah Mysticism

One o the most signifcant discoveries over the lastfy years o biblical scholarship has been the recog-nition o the importance o merkabah mysticism orunderstanding the New estament and emerging Ju-daism at the beginning o the Common Era. In recent

years the Teology Department in this university has

made an important contribution to that, and it is aprivilege to be able to explore one, perhaps surprisingaspect o that, in this years Pre Marquette Lecture.

Tirty years o studying Jewish mysticism has ledto a growing unease with all sorts o abstractions,o which mysticism must be one o the most ob-uscating. William Blake the English prophet, poetand artist, is oen described as a mystic, in order toseparate his work rom the mundane and the mate-rial. Such dualism is not only a poor encapsulationo Blakes thought but perpetuates a view o mysti-cism which sees it as otherworldly and escapist. Nodoubt mystics down the centuries, whether through

their visions or their detachment, have encouraged aworld-denying attitude, but this hardly represents theextraordinary mix we fnd between the practical andthe imaginative or intellectual. Nowhere is this betterexemplifed than in the case o Paul, who has interestin divine mysteries but also evinces a rare ability in

word and deed to engage in the practical politics ocommunity organisation.


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April DeConick helpully points out that mysti-cism is not a word actually used by ancient people todescribe their experiences.

When the early Jews and Christians describetheir mystical experiences in a single word, theydo so most oten by employing the term apokalyp-sis, an apocalypse or revelation. In the Jewishand Christian period-literature, these religious ex-

periences are described as waking visions, dreams,trances and auditions which can involve spirit pos-session and ascent journeys. The culmination o theexperience is transormative in the sense that theJewish and Christian mystics thought they could beinvested with heavenly knowledge, join the choir o

angels in worship beore the throne, or be glorifedin body. As a modern term, thereore, it reers toa tradition within early Judaism and Christianitycentred on the belie that a person directly, immedi-ately and before death can experience the divine, eitheras a rapture experience or one solicited by a particular

praxis.

Merkabah mysticism is a very general way o de-scribing a phenomenon oen alluded to in rabbinictexts as maaseh merkabah, which had to do with theinterpretation o the frst chapter o Ezekiel. Tis

1 April D. DeConick, What is Early Jewish and Chris-tian Mysticism? in Paradise Now: Essays on Early Jewishand Christian Mysticism, ed. April D. DeConick, Sym-posium Series (Society o Biblical Literature: Atlanta,2006), -24.


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describes that dramatic moment when the prophetEzekiel, in exile in Babylon, sitting by a river has adramatic vision in which he sees God enthroned inglory, on what appears to be a chariot, the Hebrewmerkabah. Te tortuous description oered reectsthe prophets diculty in putting into words exactly

what he saw. He saw creatures, eyes, ame o fre andabove a dome God enthroned, appearing in human

orm. Not surprisingly this text caught the imagina-tion o later interpreters, and it is almost certain thatin addition to explaining what went on or Ezekielthese interpreters also believed that like Ezekiel theycould catch a glimpse o what Ezekiel had seen. o

put it in the words o one o thee most distinguished

interpreters o the history o the interpretation othis chapter, David Halperin: When the apocalyp-tic visionary sees something ... we may assume thathe is seeing the ... vision as he has persuaded himselit really was, as (the prophet) would have seen it, hadhe been inspired wholly and not in part.2

It is probable that meditation on passages likeEzekiel 1, set as it is in exile and the aermath o aprevious destruction o the emple, would have beenparticularly apposite, as the rabbis sought to come toterms with the devastation o 70 CE. O course, ithe practical methods were among the most closelyguarded secrets o the tradition, and i some inu-ential rabbis were hostile to them, we should expect

2 D. Halperin, Faces of the Chariot: early Jewish responsesto Ezekiels vision (Tbingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 998), 7.


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the sources to be very reticent about them, especiallywhen the practice was liable to cause theological andhalakic deviance. Controversy concerning the sta-tus and legitimacy o the tradition is likely to haveoccurred during the frst century, probably becauseo the way in which such traditions were developedin extra-rabbinic circles, not least Christianity. Weknow Paul was inuenced by apocalyptic ascent

ideas (2 Cor 12:2-4); he emphasises the importanceo this visionary element as the basis o his practice(Gal 1:12 and 16; c. Acts 22:17). Pauls apocalyp-tic outlook enabled him to act on his eschatologicalconvictions; his apocalypse o Jesus Christ becamethe basis or his practice o admitting Gentiles to

the messianic age without the practice o the Law oMoses. Problems with apocalypticism were a com-mon eature o emerging Christianity and Judaism.In this there was common ground even i there wasnot much evidence in their literature o either toler-ance on the part o Christians or interest on the part

o the Jews.Tere were many things that ascinated the ancientinterpreters, but, arguably, most important o all

was the way in which the prophet dared to describethe enthroned divinity. Te Hebrew o this alreadyshows signs o increasing the reserve. In addition tothe piling up o similitudes such as in the likeness o, the Masoretic text by the omission o one letteralmost certainly changes in the likeness o a man toin the likeness o fre, thereby reducing the anthro-


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pomorphism, though this could not be eradicatedcompletely, as the ollowing verse goes on to describethe bodily orm o the divinity. Tis became the basiso extravagant speculations about the body o God inlater mystical Judaism, which may have both had theirantecedents in Judaism and afected Christianity as it

presented Christ as the visible, bodily, appearance othe unseen divinity, the words used in both John 1:18

and Col 1:15. So, despite the prohibition o imagesand the repeated assertion that humans could notsee God and live, passages like Ezekiel and its com-

panion visionary text Isaiah 6 indicate that not onlywas God visible in human orm but that humans didmanage to see the divine and live. Without wanting

to get into the complexities o the relationship be-tween the maniestation o the unseen god in humanorm and the prohibition o images, two points needto be made. Firstly, in Genesis 1:26-7 the Hebrew

which is used or let us create man in our image is aword which concerns physical representation (as in a

statue) and not some vague likeness which might berelated to moral or ethical qualities. Secondly, withinthe earliest strands o the Hebrew Bible there are re-erences to the malak YHWH, the angel o the Lord,

which appears in human orm, sometimes indistin-guishable rom humans (Genesis 16), at other timesmore apparently otherworldly (Judges 13). Tesebiblical examples provide us with parallels to the

picture in which a heavenly being possibly ( Judges13:3) acts as Gods representative in such a way that


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he could be thought o as God himsel (e.g. Judges13:5.). Te distinguished biblical commentator, W.Eichrodt has recognised this aspect o Jewish theol-ogy and comments on it in the ollowing way:

Among the narratives relating to the angel oneparticular group stands out because it describesan emissary o Yahweh who is no longer clearly

distinguishable rom his master but in his appear-ing and speaking clothes himsel with Yahwehsown appearance and speech Consequently

when the words o the malak in Gen. 21:18 and22:11 make use o the divine I, this is not to beregarded as a naive sel-identifcation on the parto the emissary with the one who has given him

the orders but as a sign o the presence o God inthe angel-phenomenon.3

While little detail is given about these angelophanies,it appears that in the earliest strands o biblical tradi-tion there could be an appearance o an angel whichin some sense was regarded as communicating the

presence o God himsel. Tus it was possible to callthis being God (Gen. 31:11 and 13) despite the actthat this attribute was derived rom his unction asGods representative.

My intention in pointing to all this is not to picka out pieces o inormation which may be o interest

to the ancient interpretation o the frst chapter oEzekiel, so much as to pave the way or the main con-

3 W. Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament(London:SCM 967), ii.33.


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cerns o todays lecture: the art and writing o Wil-liam Blake.

2. William Blake (1757-1827)

William Blake was a visionary who communed withangels and even his dead brother regularly. Memo-rably in a later work he outlines his peculiar vision-

ary experience in words which are central to Blakesimaginative and allegorical style:

What it will be Questiond When the Sun rises doyou not see a round Disk o fre somewhat like aGuinea O no no I see an Innumerable companyo the Heavenly host crying Holy Holy Holy isthe Lord God Almighty I question not my Cor-

poreal or Vegetative Eye any more than I wouldQuestion a Window concerning a Sight I lookthro it & not with it.

(Catalogue 1810, on Te Last Judgement)

Blake resists staying with whatappears

to be there as iit has no other dimensions to its meaning. One looksthrough it or around it to appreciate another dimen-sion o existence. Tis is the same as the ancient Jew-ish mystics ( John included) who, as they read, medi-tated upon and studied the prophetic visions, oundthatin biblical wordsthe door o perceptionopened up to them another realm o existence.


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For Blake seeing with the imaginative eye was ona par with the physical sight.4 In the readers engage-ment with Blakes texts, word and image jostle witheach other in the page. Blake demands the involve-ment o the reader/spectator in creating meaningrom poems in which there is no defnitive meaning

waiting to be discovered. Te kind o interpretativeprocess set up by Blake is illustrated by a passage rom

one o his letters, which oers a way o understandingthe heart o Blakes hermeneutics. Here Blake comesas close as anywhere to describing what is going onin his work, and it is an emphasis on the eects othe text. It is in a letter where Blake is asked preciselyor a code to help the reader/viewer understand his

work:

You say that I want somebody to elucidate myideas. But you ought to know that what is grandis necessarily obscure to weak men. Tat whichcan be made explicit to the idiot is not worth mycare. Te wisest o the ancients considerd what

is not too explicit as the fttest or instruction,because it rouzes the aculties to act. I name Moses,Solomon, Esop, Homer, Plato... Why is the Biblemore Entertaining & Instructive than any other

4 M.H. Abrams, Natural Supernaturalism: Tradition andRevolution in Romantic Literature (New York: Norton

97). Cf. Blake, We are led to Believe a Lie When wesee not Thro the Eye, and I question not my Corpo-real or Vegetative Eye any more than I would Questiona Window concerning a Sight I look thro it & not withit.


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book? Is it not because they are addressed to theImagination, which is Spiritual Sensation and but

mediately to the understanding or reason.5

Blake came rom an artisan background and wasapprenticed to an engraver in London. His exper-tise in this cra was undamental to his art. He sorefned and perected his skill that he evolved a way

o producing the exercise o his own imagination inhis own unique method o engraving. Te engravingtechnique he perected enabled him to translate theruits o his inspiration immediately onto copper

plates. Tereby inspiration and execution came to beunited in a way with ew parallels in the history o

artistic production.In his work, Blake was able to develop his ownmythology, rooted in the symbols and images o thebiblical prophecies and apocalypses, to challengethe domination o deerence to the old words and

phrases. He was an implacable enemy o devotion tomemory (tradition) at the expense o inspiration orimagination. Blakes relationship with the Bible was acomplex one, and it would be possible to devote thislecture to what Blake wrote about the Bible. Whilethere can be ew writers and artists whose work is so

permeated with biblical themes, Blake is at the sametime one o the Bibles fercest critics, not least in the

way he inveighed against a theology which viewedGod as a remote monarch and lawgiver as well as the

5 Letter to Trusler, in Blake, Complete Writings, (Ox-ford, 966), 793-4.


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preoccupation with the words o the text. Trough-out his lie the Bible dominated Blakes imaginative

world, even in the early period when he was morecritical.

3. Blake, Prophecy and Ezekiel

Te central image o Blake, rom whenever he

frst ormulated his mythology, is Ezekiels, theMerkabah, Divine Chariot or orm o God inmotion. Te Living Creatures or Four Zoas areEzekiels and not initially Blakes, a priority oinvention that Blakes critics, in their search ormore esoteric sources, sometimes evade. Ezekiel,in regard to Blakes Jerusalem, is like Homer in

regard to the Aeneid: the inventor, the precursor,the shaper o the later works continuities. FromEzekiel in particular Blake learned the true mean-ing o prophet, visionary orator, honest man whospeaks into heart o a situation to warn: i you goon so, the result is so; or as Blake said, a seer andnot an arbitrary dictator.6

Blake recognizes the prophets of the Bible as kin-dred spirits; in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, hedines with Isaiah and Ezekiel:

6 H. Bloom, BlakesJerusalem: The Bard of Sensibilityand the Form of Prophecy, in H. Bloom, The Ringer inthe Tower: Studies in Romantic Tradition (Chicago: Uni-versity of Chicago Press), 65-79.


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Te Prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel dined with me,and I asked them how they dared so roundly

to assert that God spake to them; and whetherthey did not think at the time, that they wouldbe misunderstood, & so be the cause o imposi-tion . Ezekiel said, Te philosophy o the easttaught the frst principles o human perception:some nations held one principle or the origin &some another; we o Israel taught that the Poetic

Genius (as you now call it) was the frst principleand all the others merely derivative, which was thecause o our despising the Priests & Philosopherso other countries, and prophesying that all Gods

would at last be proved to originate in ours & tobe the tributaries o the Poetic Genius; it wasthis that our great poet King David desired so

ervently & invokes so patheticly, saying by thishe conquers enemies & governs kingdoms; and

we so loved our God that we cursed in his nameall the deities o surrounding nations, and assertedthat they had rebelled; rom these opinions the

vulgar came to think that all nations would at lastbe subject to the jews.

Tis, said he, like all frm perswasions, iscome to pass; or all nations believe the jewscode and worship the jews god, and what greatersubjection can be?

I heard this with some wonder, & must conessmy own conviction. Aer dinner I then askedEzekiel why he eat dung, & lay so long on his right

& le side? he answerd, the desire o raising othermen into a perception o the infnite; this theNorth American tribes practise, & is he honest


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who resists his genius or conscience, only or thesake o present ease or gratifcation?

Te various ways in which Ezekiels vision inormsBlakes art and illuminated books represent a sig-nifcant part o his distinctive interpretation o theBible and are closely related to the understanding o

politics and theology which make him such a distinc-

tive (and neglected) interpreter o the Bible in thehistory o English theology. Whether Blake was in-uenced by merkabah mysticism itsel, I cannot atthis stage decide. Many have pointed out that Blakeseems to allude to a kabbalistic doctrine that Adam

was a microcosm o the whole universe (Jerusalem,

Plate 27). It may be possible to make a case or Blakebeing inuenced by other aspects o Jewish kabbalis-tic tradition. What is clear is that Blake is part o theaccount one would want to give o the inuence oEzekiel 1 on Christian interpreters.

Whether or not Blake used Ezekiels vision as thetrigger o his own visions is unclear. We cannot,thereore, respond to the title Blake and merkabahmysticism by suggesting that Blake was inuenced bymerkabah mysticism itsel, though he was deeply in-debted to the prophetic inspiration o Ezekiel. Whatis not in doubt, however, is that Ezekiels merkabahhas a prominent place in Blakes work, orming the

inspiration o his major poetic workTe Four Zoas,in which the mysteries o the human character are

plumbed.


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4. Humanity in divinity

Te link between humanity and divinity, as well asthe complexity o human personality is hinted at inBlakes painting Ezekiels Wheels (1804, Museum oFine Art, Boston), and redolent o that humanity indivinity ound in the Jewish midrash and early patris-tic exegesis o the merkabah. What is striking about

this picture is the prominence o the human fgureamong the our creatures (man, lion, ox and eagle)that surround the divine throne-chariot.

Whether Blake knew the details o Jewish inter-pretation, we cannot be sure, though many havesuggested that he may have been inuenced by cab-balistic ideas, especially in his later works. It is lessthe establishment o a genealogical connection thanthe demonstration o an anity o interest in the mer-kabah and its relation with the human that I wantto suggest. In Gen 28:12 Jacobs vision o angels as-cending and descending to God was painted by Blakeand was in antiquity the subject o much speculation

about the link between heaven and earth:

R. Hiyya the Elder and R. Yannai disagreed. Onemaintained: they were ascending and descendingthe ladder; while the other said; they were ascend-ing and descending on Jacob ... Tus it says, Israel in

whom I will be glorifed; it is thou whose eatures

are engraved on high; they ascended on high and


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saw his eatures and they descended below and

ound him sleeping.7

Tere is an earthly and heavenly dimension oJacobs persona.8 What is important about the pa-triarch is that his eatures are those which are parto the divine merkava and as such looking at Jacob

would enable any one who was aware o this to know

something o the secret o the merkava. Tis is mademore evident in the targumim on Gen 28:12, whereit is stated explicitly that Jacobs eatures are those

which are engraved on the throne o glory. Tere areour versions o this legend, three o which (Pseudo-

Jonathan, the Fragmentary argum and Neofti) are

7 C. Blake,Milton, plate 4: As when a man dreams,he refects not that his body sleeps, Else he would wake;so seemd he entering his Shadow: but with him the Spir-its o the Seven Angels o the Presence Entering; theygave him still perceptions o his Sleeping Body ... or

when he enterd into his Shadow: Himsel: His real and

immortal Sel; was as appeard to those Who dwell inimmortality, as One sleeping on a couch o gold ...

8 Explored in Jarl E. Fossum, The Son o Mans AlterEgo. John .5, Targumic Tradition and Jewish Mys-ticism, in The Image of the Invisible God (Gottingen:Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 995), 35-5; andin S.

Bunta, The likeness o the image: Adamic motis andanthropology in rabbinic traditions about Jacobs imageenthroned in heaven,Journal for the Study of Judaism inthe Persian, Hellenistic and Roman Period 37 (2006):55-84, esp. 56-63.


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substantially the same. Te version in Ps.-Jonathan isreproduced here:

And he dreamed and behold a ladder was fxedon earth and its top stretched to the height oheaven. And behold angels who went to Sodomand who had been banished rom them becausethey revealed the secrets o the lord o the world.And they went until the time that Jacob le thehouse o his ather. And they escorted him inkindness to Bethel. And on that day they wentup to the high heavens, spoke and said, Come see

Jacob the pious whose eatures are fxed on thethrone o glory which you desire to look on. Sothe rest o the holy angels o the LORD descendedto look on him.

It represents a view we meet elsewhere in the rabbinictradition where all the patriarchs are identifed withthe chariot (merkava).9 In the targumic passage ei-ther Jacob was identifed with the ace o the man onthe chariot or possibly with the human orm o God

seated upon it.Te fgure o a man was linked with ancestors like

Jacob or Abraham. Tese passages link the human in

9 See also b.Hul 9b. The signifcance o the orm othe ancestors or understanding the likeness o God is

stressed also in b.BB 58a: R. Baanah used to mark outcaves ... When he came to the cave o Adam, a voicecame rom heaven saying, Thou hast seen the likeness omy likeness (i.e. Abraham), my likeness itsel (i.e. Adam)thou shalt not behold.


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the midst o the divine with the environs o divinity,much as Blake does in his picture. Blake wants to gourther as he does in his poem Te Divine Image.Tat identifcation o the divine with the human,

which is at the heart o the speculation about thehuman orm o the divinity, is also crucial to earlyChristianity. Here the pre-existent Christ becomesthe human orm o the invisible God as biblical

theophanicwhether o God appearing in humanorm or o the Angel o the lordare identifed withChrist. In early Christian use o this passage the hu-man fgure was linked with Christ (John 12:41; Jus-tin,Dialogue 126).

5. Blake and the wheel within the

wheel of Joachim of Fiore

In this Blake had been anticipated by his great apoca-lyptic predecessor, Joachim o Fiore.10 Joachim usedthe Book o Revelation as a way o understanding his-

tory and thereby emboldened groups and individualsto see themselves as being part o imminent eschato-logical events. Tere are two basic threads which runthrough Joachims hermeneutic: frstly, that every-thing which happened in the Old estament has its

10 Liber Figurarum:

Rotae Ezechiel, Corpus ChristiCollege, Oxford, MS 258A f. 6v.; The Vision of Ezekiel,57, Palazzo Pitto, Florence. See also M. Reeves and B.Hirsch-Reich, The Figurae of Joachim of Fiore (Oxford:Oxford University Press 972).


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own actuality in time, yet is also a sign pointing or-ward to a uture happening in the new dispensationwhich is (or will be) a uller disclosure o Gods pur-pose or humanity. Te second thread is a trinitarianreading o history in which a coming third age, thato the Spirit, characterized by an outburst o spiritualactivity in the orm o monastic renewal, was immi-nent, even i this age o renewal and struggle might

be expected to last or a signifcant amount o time.In his later years Joachim complemented his literaryexpositions o the Apocalypse with images that en-capsulated the heart o his belies about history andsalvation.

Most o Joachims remarkable artistic represen-

tations concern the nature o history, applying inparticular his distinctive typological interpretationo history which uses both the Apocalypse and trini-tarian theology as an interpretative key, not only orthe Bible but also or human history. Joachims de-

piction o Ezekiel 1 relates to this. Te wheel within

the wheel reects his theory o concords betweenthe Old and the New estament (the New is hiddenwithin the narrative texts o the Old). Te creaturesrepresent dierent aspects o the lie o Christ, ormso interpretation o Scripture, the human characterand the dierent orders o a uture society (amplifedin his depiction o the New Jerusalem). Te centreo the wheel is taken up by Caritas (relevant to thetertium status) and the era o the Spirit.


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Both Joachim and Blake trace a link between thedivine and the human. For Joachim the basic human

virtues are embraced by, and contained in, the gloryo the merkabah. For Blake the relationship betweenhuman and divine is more intimate. It is unlikely thatBlake knew anything about Joachim, but in certainrespects his approach to Ezekiel has much in com-mon with Joachims, especially in its allegorizing o

the text. What Blake termed the Four Zoas eature inmuch o his mature work, both poetry and art. Blakeidentifed the Zoas with dierent aspects o the hu-man personality (Jerusalem 36:31; 98:22): the body(which he termed Tarmas); reason (Urizen, thesubject o the major critique o rationalist religion in

Blakes work o the 1790s); emotions (Luvah) and, f-nally, imagination (Urthona). Blake also linked them

with the our compass points (Milton 19:18; 34:35).Plate 46 o Jerusalem has long caused problem

or interpreters. It is possible that its aming chari-ot has anities with Ezekiels merkabahthe lion-

headed human with eagles behind, perhaps with thehooves and horns o the ox. Te eyes are there in theserpents which entwine the chariot, a eature o somany o Blakes drawings o the divinity. It may bean apocalyptic vision rom which the riders in thechariot recoil. We are not told who the inhabitantsare but the journey in the fery chariot causes appre-hensiveness and suggests that that journey is one o

potential harm rather than joy, something which the


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merkabah mystics feared as well as their journey tothe divine regions.

Earlier Blake had used the wheels within wheelsas part of a critique of the ideology of the thinkingof his day:

I see the Four-fold Man, Te Humanity in deadlysleep

And its fallen Emanation, the Spectre and its cruelShadow.I see the Past, Present and Future existing all atonceBefore me. O Divine Spirit, sustain me on thy

wings,Tat I may awake Albion from his long and cold

repose;For Bacon and Newton, sheathd in dismal steel,their terrors hangLike iron scourges over Albion: reasonings like

vast serpentsInfold around my limbs, bruising my minutearticulations.

I turn my eyes to the schools and universities ofEuropeAnd there behold the Loom of Locke, whose Wolfrages dire,

Washd by the Water-wheels of Newton: blackthe cloth

In heavy wreaths folds over every nation: cruelworksOf many Wheels I view, wheel without wheel,

with cogs tyrannic


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Moving by compulsion each other, not as thosein Eden, which,

Wheel within wheel, in reedom revolve in har-mony and peace.

(Jerusalem 15)

Here Blake relates the workings o the mind, whichproduce ignorance via machine-like activity, to the

consequences in a society, which produces religionhid in war. Te ways o thinking in vogue at theuniversities, the mechanized lie, has no room orthought, still less or imagination. Te water wheelso Newton are mechanical and utterly predicatableand contrast with those in Eden. All o this echoesEzek 1:16. In Eden the chariot o lie surrounded bythe our living creatures ofers true humanity and theentry into the world o imagination.

An altogether more optimistic note is struck inPlate 98 whose words might be read as a chariot vi-sion. When the inernal trinity, Bacon & Newton &Locke meet with Milton & Shakespeare & Chaucer,

Te innumerable Chariots o the Almighty appeardin heaven. In this eschatological scenario the Fourliving creatures chariots o humanity divine incom-

prehensible in beautiul paradise expand . And theFour aces o Humanity ... going orward irresistiblerom Eternity to Eternity and they conversed togeth-

er in Visionary orms dramatic Here in the apoca-lyptic climax is what John o the Apocalypse says, weshall see his ace, as indeed Ezekiel does. For Blake


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that divine vision is the ullness o humanity revealedand enjoyed.

Humanity made in the divine image (subject otwo contrasting poems in Songs of Innocence and of Experience) thus reects the divine. Te balance be-tween these characteristics in humanity is crucial. Itis the dominance o reason over imagination whichis at the heart o Blakes critical aesthetics. Te Four

Zoas turn up in both Te Last Judgement and in asketch or the title page o the late Genesis illustra-tions, where the contrasting habits o the our crea-tures are well brought out by Blake in the diferent

postures they adopt. In the ull length poem whichdescribes their activities, they are described as our

Wonders o the Almighty, incomprehensible, per-vading all, amidst and round about, ourold, eachin the other reected: they are named LiesinEternityFour Starry Universes going orward romEternity to Eternity.11 Teir role as an apocalypti-cally inspired transormation in the human person-

ality is hinted at in A Vision of the Last Judgement,where Blake writes:

Te Four Living Creatures mentiond in Revela-tions as Surrounding the throne; these I suppose tohave the chie agency in removing the old heavens& the old earth to make way or the New heaven

11 The Four Zoas, 797, 9:28. In Blake, CompleteWritings, 364.


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& the New earth, to descend rom the throne oGod & o the Lamb.12

Blake completed (in dra orm only as he neverturned it into a printed text) a work called Te FourZoas written around 1797. Blake wrote in a letter o1803 to Tomas Butts that he had written a num-ber o verses on a grand Teme . From immedi-

ate Dictation, twelve or sometimes thirty lines at atime, without premeditation & even against my will.Tis suggests that the poem was the result o whatamounts to automatic writing.13 Its inspiration is, in

part at least, Ezekiel, or perhaps Ezekiel as mediatedthrough Johns Apocalypse. Te work is essentially

an exploration o human psychology in which eachcreature becomes a multi-aceted aspect o the hu-man personality. It is about the warare between thediferent parts o the human character. Te poem iscomplicated not only by the use o Blakes idiosyn-cratic imagery but also by his very distinctive use obiblical characters (thus Rahab becomes the chie op-

ponent o Jesus, or example). Te dream-like inspi-

12 A Vision of the Last Judgement, 80, p. 82-84. InBlake, Complete Writings, 62.

13 The extent to which Blakes etching technology fa-cilitated direct inspiration has been a matter of debate;

see J. Viscomi, Blake and the Idea of the Book(Princeton:Princeton University Press, 993), especially pp. 42-43;and M. Phillips, The Creation of the Songs: From manu-script to Illuminated Printing(Princeton: Princeton Uni-versity Press, 2000).


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ration leads to a tangled story and the sudden changeo subject that destroys the appearance o any con-tinuous logical narrative. In this use o Ezekiel, Blake

was drawing on the complex biblical hermeneutics owriters like Jacob Boehme, but, as with so much elsein his writing, he made his own original interpreta-tion.

6. Divine in human in BlakesJob sequence

Blakes reading o Jobs story resembles that o thestory o Paul in the New estament where Saul be-comes Paul and reads the Bible with new eyes. It is a

personal upheaval in which the past seems to be le

behind but in act is taken up and read diferently inthe light o the apocalyptic vision. One might saythat Paul, blameless according to the letter o the law(Phil 3:6), leaves it all behind (Phil 3:7) or the sakeo a religion based on vision (Gal 1:12 & 16), ratherthan one based on memory. According to some re-

cent writing on the Pauline letters, Paul was a Jewwho was radicalized by a vision, which, as with someo his contemporaries, turned his lie upside down.

What happened or Paul was that he moved rom ahermeneutic o the letter to one o the spirit and inhis practice relaxed the entry requirements or out-siders to become members o the people o God. Insupport o this religion he used parts o the Bible tocriticize other parts o scripture. Tis process is mostapparent in Galatians, where the promise to Abra-


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ham in Genesis is used to challenge the orah andthe Sinai covenant.

Despite Pauls rhetoric about the clean slate ohis conversion, his way o living and interpreting the

world moved within the parameter o the ancestralscriptures. Te extent o the continuity is broughtout in the Job sequence too. Te iconographicalsimilarity between plates 1 and 21 suggests that Job

remains inside the tabernacle o the Bible. Te Oldestament (the religion o the book, is not aban-doned (it is aer all part o the Great Code o Art).

What really matters is how Job reads it and the rela-tionship it has with the rest o his lie.

Te other key text in plate 21 stresses the abandon-

ment o sacrifce: Christianity gave up emple andsacrifce, or, better, interpreted them in a transerredsense o the lie in community and ellowship. Tecontrast between Job praying and his riends sacrifc-ing in 41.5 c. 42.8 (pl. 18) is indicative o Jobs changeo position as a result o the personal upheaval, which

he has undergone.Te Eliphaz and Elihu plates as well as the night-mare experience o Job, in dierent ways, bear wit-ness to the importance o the dream and the visionin Blakes reading o the book o Job. Tis is a cru-cially important way o gaining access to God. Blakesinsight ocuses on the ew texts about visions anddreams, especially chapters 38-41 which then oeran interpretative ramework or his reading o thebook as a whole.


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Another aspect o visionary texts is the way inwhich contrasts between the visionary world, theworld above, and the world below, contrast with oneanother. Tis is key to the understanding o all the

visionary texts in the Bible, especially the Apoca-lypse. Te dualistic characteristics o visionary textsappear in Job 1-2, where the reader is given a glimpseinto the activities o the heavenly court. In the early

plates o the sequence we fnd the distinct contrastbetween above and below. Tis disappears in the di-

vine theophany (ch. 38-41). Te overcoming o thedivision between heaven and earth is a major themeo the New estament Apocalypse. According to thecosmology o the Book o Revelation, the present

divide between heaven and earth, the age to comeand this age, is only a temporary phenomenon. At theclimax o his vision, John sees a new heaven and anew earth; but the signifcant thing about the newcreation is that the contrast o the old creation hasgone; heaven is no longer the dwelling place o the

holy God separated rom humanity, which dwells onearth (Rev. 21:3). What Blake has done (as is the casewith John 1:14) is regard the collapsing o the hu-man and divine, which in the Book o Revelation isan eschatological event, as something which is pos-sible in this lie. We shall see in our considerationo Te Last Judgement the extent to which Blakeexplores Johannine eschatological themes. In En-graving 17 God and humanity combine. Not only(to use the language o Revelation 21-2) do humans


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see God ace-to-ace but the divine name is on theirheads: we shall be like him, writes the author o 1

John 3:2.In the Job sequence, Jobs understanding o Godchanges rom transcendent monarch to immanentdivine presence, epitomized by the words quotedon plate 17: At that day ye shall know that I am inmy Father, and ye in me, and I in you. I ye loved, ye

would rejoice because I said I go to the Father ( Jn14:20).

7. Bringing the enthroned divinity

down to earth

A repeated visual and poetic theme in Blakes work isthe challenge to divine monarchy and transcendence.Tis is achieved by the way he depicts divine fguresenthroned, similar to God in Ezekiels Wheels, andthen challenges notions o the transcendent divinemonarch.

Blakes concern throughout the Job illustrationsis to challenge the monarchical transcendent god ochurch and state, and to stress the prominence whichis to be given to the visionary element in religion. Jobbegins as an adherent o a religion o the letter, butis overwhelmed by apocalypse and converted to a re-ligion o the spirit. Tis is a sequence which reectsBlakes major theological concerns, but at several key

points indicates Blakes exegetical insight, not least inhis appreciation o the centrality o the apocalyptic


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dimension o the book and the importance o a chris-tological interpretation o it in the context o inter-

pretation o the Christian Bible.14 Blakes ocus onthe apocalyptic ramework o the book o Job, chap-ters 1-2 and 40, is used to portray Jobs conversionrom a book-religion to a religion o immediacy and

vision. Te dualistic ramework which characterizesthe opening depictions o Blakes Job sequence is

le behind at the end: God in Christ appears to Joband his wie without the apocalyptic, cosmologicaltrappings evident in the opening visions. Tereore,there is a development in Jobs theology, rom beliein the divinely transcendent monarch to a religiono divine immanence. Tis change o understand-

ing corresponds with one o Blakes major politicalpre-occupations: a challenge to the way in whichtheology becomes an ideological undergirding or

political monarchy. Tis parallels similar challengesto theological monarchy as a paradigm or earthly

politics elsewhere in the Blake corpus, e.g. Europe 11

and possibly Ezekiels Wheels.Ezekiel 1 is also the basis or Blakes depiction oJohns vision in Revelation 4-5. In hisTe Four andwenty Elders (c.1803-05, ate Gallery, London),Blake evokes the amber and blue o the Ezekiel vision

while depicting the ourth and fh chapters o Rev-elation together: the rainbow; the eyes; the sealed

14 In this respect I differ from David Brown in Tradi-tion and Imagination. For Brown, Blakes interpretativebrilliance rests more on imagination than exegesis.


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scroll. Given the way the lamb is such a prominenteature in Blakes writing rom the earlySongs of Inno-

cence to the laterJerusalem, the lamb in this picture iscuriously passive and anonymous. Just as interestingin the light o its enormous impact on modern bibli-cal study was Blakes ascination with the then newlydiscovered Apocalypse o Enoch.

Te Apocalypse o Enoch, brought back rom

Ethiopia where it had been preserved by the Ethio-pian Church, was frst published at the beginning othe nineteenth century. Tough Blake may have beenaware o the book and had access to excerpts o trans-lations rom it or several years beore, at the time ohis death he le his illustrations or the Apocalypse

incomplete.15 Among the unfnished sketches, onedepicts I Enoch 14:8, a chapter which has muchexercised the minds o students o Second emple

Judaism, as it oers an extended description o thevision o God, Te Great Glory, enthroned in theinmost recesses o the heavenly emple. I Enoch 14 is

ull o imagery borrowed rom Ezekiel 1, which, as wehave seen, itsel became the basis or later visionariesto glimpse again the awesome vision that appeared tothe prophet by the waters o Babylon.

Blakes harshest caricature parody o the enthronedmonarchical law-giver and insistence on the need or

15 J. Beer, Blakes Changing View of History: the Im-pact of the Book of Enoch, in Historicizing Blake, ed. S.Clark and D. Worrall (London: Macmillan, 994), 59ff.


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an understanding o God less abstract and remoteis well exemplifed by Plate 11 rom Europe.16 Teone enthroned with a book o brass, holds the power

which holds humanity in thrall through the web oreligion binding them to obedience to a religion olaw rather than encouraging mutual orgiveness.Here is the orbidding deity characteristic o the re-ligion o Europe, according to Blake, the remote de-

ity, too exalted to wipe tears rom eyes. For Blake, theworship o God involves a recognition o God notas remote creator divinity, captured in his Anciento Days in part o the preace toEurope, a Prophecy,but in the person o others: Te worship o God is:Honouring his gis in other men, each according to

his genius17

Blake the Latter Day Ezekiel

Neither Ezekiel nor Blake was primarily a mystic.Both thought o themselves as prophets. Tere is one

urther aspect o Blakes indebtedness to Ezekiel thatwe need to explore: Blakes role as a prophet.

At the end of Ezekiels prophecy, the prophet isshown the buildings of a city and is told to note

16 Europe, a prophesy, 794. Cf. TheBook of Urizen,

794, 4:40, where the book of brass concerns one King,one God, one Law. Blake, Complete Writings, 224.

17 Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 22; Blake, Com-plete Writings, 58.


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what he sees in it and tell it to the people (Ezek40:4). He has the opportunity to walk through

its streets and describe what he sees. John as anEzekiel for his own day, and his contemporary,the writer of 4 Ezra likewise, are similarly com-manded to explore the beauty of the cities theyare shown in their vision. In 4 Ezra 0:55, forexample, Ezra is commanded to go into the

city and see the great buildings in all their splen-dour.

Te seer on entering the city, will encounter suchthings that his eye cannot take them all in. We mayaccount for the experience described by comparing itwith the revelation of the ideal temple city in Ezekiel

40-48. Te man who holds the measuring tools saysto the prophet: Te man said to me, Mortal, lookclosely and listen attentively, and set your mind uponall that I shall show you, for you were brought here inorder that I might show it to you; declare all that yousee to the house of Israel (Ezekiel 40:4). Ezekiel is

expected to comprehend everything that he sees andhears and to transmit it to Israel. We should recallthat the measurements and parts of the heavenly tem-ple/city were a subject of speculation already fromancient times, and a somewhat later analogous text isthe Aramaic New Jerusalem, extant in a number ofcopies at Qumran.18 In a forthcoming article, Te

18 See Michael E. Stone, Apocalyptic Literature,Jew-ish Writings of the Second Temple Period, ed. M. E. Stone(Compendia Rerum Iudaicarum ad Novum Testamen-


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City in 4 Ezra in Te Journal of Biblical Literature,Michael Stone has explored the signifcance o thisreerence in 4 Ezra and its possible links with early

Jewish mysticism.It is the command to explore the streets o the city,

which inuses Blake the poet prophet in his wonder-ul poem London:

I wander through each chartered street,Near where the chartered Tames does ow,A mark in every ace I meet,Marks o weakness, marks o woe.

In every cry o every man,In every inants cry o ear,

In every voice, in every ban,Te mind-orged manacles I hear:

How the chimney-sweepers cryEvery blackening church appals,And the hapless soldiers sighRuns in blood down palace-walls.

But most, through midnight streets I hearHow the youthul harlots curseBlasts the new-born inants tear,And blights with plagues the marriage hearse.

London rom Songs of Experience

Tis poem encapsulates his prophetic vocation andhis understanding o his activity as well as any oth-

tum 2.2; Assen and Philadelphia: van Gorcum and For-tress, 984), 385.


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er. It is as a latter day Ezekiel or John that Blake thepoet walks the streets of London and sees the marksof the beasts and of the eschatological woes in hismidst in this poem.19 Te old man guided by thechild is an image which recurs in Blakes illuminatedbooks. Here is the sense that it is the prophet as thechild who has access to the mysteries and is able togo through the door into the darkness. Te imagery

echoes the door open in heaven, but here the illumi-nation is that which belongs to every honest person

who is a prophet. Blake would not have known aboutthis but as the poet prophet discerning what Ezekiel(and the author of 2 Esdras, a work which had greatimportance for early modern radicals20) were saying

and like them expects to do, in and exploring the city.Yet, more in the tradition of Ezekiel, this time it is todiscern marks of weakness, marks of woe, not theglories of the celestial city or the divine merkabah.

Blake like Ezekiel and John of Patmos, but un-like the early merkabah mystics, explicitly thought

of himself as a prophet to his generation. For himthe visions became not a kind of retreat into somekind of spiritual comfort zone. Not that the mysti-

19 E.P. Thompson, Witness against the Beast (Cam-bridge: Cambridge University Press 993), 79-94.

20 A. Hamilton, The Apocryphal Apocalypse: The Recep-tion of the Second Book of Esdras (4 Ezra) from the Renais-sance to the Enlightenment (Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress 999).


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cal ascent to heaven through the celestial palacessurrounded by threatening angels was ever that forthe Jewish mystics. It is when visionary experience in-forms a sense of the incompatibility of human actionand divine justice that the prophet speaks, when, asBlake put it, one sees through the eye and not withit, and ordinary things become transformed in thedivine light, whether of salvation or judgment. Blake

is a compelling example of the prophetic vocationready to bear witness to the Beast and Babylon inhis midst. His prophetic vision owes so much to theinspiration of his prophetic forebears, not least thestrange prophet who saw the divine merkabah by the

waters of Babylon, which thereby transformed his

life and his hope.


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The Pre Marquette Lectures in Theology

1969 Te Authority for AuthorityQ Q

1970 Mystery and ruth

J M

1971 Doctrinal Pluralism

Bd L, S.J.

1972 InfallibilityG A. Ldbk

1973 Ambiguity in Moral ChoiceRd A. MCmk, S.J.

1974 Church Membership as a Catholic and EcumenicalProblemAv D, S.J.

1975 Te Contributions of Teology to Medical Ethics

Jm Gf

1976 Religious Values in an Age of ViolenceRbb M Tbm

1977 ruth Beyond Relativism:

Karl Mannheims Sociology of KnowledgeG Bm

1978 A Teology of Uncreated EnergiesG A. M, S.J.

1980 Method in Teology: An Organon for Our imeFdk E. Cw, S.J.


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Te Pre Marquette Lectures in Teology

1981 Catholics in the Promised Land o the SaintsJames Hennesey, S.J.

1982 Whose Experience Counts in Teological Refection?Monika Hellwig

1983 Te Teology and Setting o Discipleship in theGospel o MarkJohn R. Donahue, S.J.

1984 Should War Be Eliminated?Philosophical and Teological InvestigationsStanley Hauerwas

1985 From Vision to Legislation:From the Council to a Code o LawsLadislas M. Orsy, S.J.

1986 Revelation and Violence:A Study in ContextualizationWalter Brueggemann

1987 Nova et Vetera:Te Teology o radition in American Catholicism

Gerald Fogarty

1988 Te Christian Understanding o Freedom and theHistory o Freedom in the Modern Era: Te Meeting andConrontation between Christianity and the Modern Erain a Postmodern SituationWalter Kasper

1989 Moral Absolutes:Catholic radition, Current rends, and the ruthWilliam F. May


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Te Pre Marquette Lectures in Teology

1990 Is Marks Gospel a Life of Jesus?Te Question of Genre

Adela Yarbro Collins

1991 Faith, History and Cultures:Stability and Change in Church eachingsWalter H. Principe, C.S.B.

1992 Universe and Creed

Stanley L. Jaki1993 Te Resurrection of Jesus Christ:

Some Contemporary IssuesGerald G. OCollins, S.J.

1994 Seeking God in Contemporary Culture

Most Reverend Rembert G. Weakland, O.S.B.

1995 Te Book of Proverbs and Our Search for Wisdom

Richard J. Cliord, S.J.1996 Orthodox and Catholic Sister Churches:

East Is West and West Is EastMichael A. Fahey, S.J.

1997 Faith Adoring the Mystery:

Reading the Bible with St. Ephrm the SyrianSidney H. Grifth

1998 Is Tere Life after Death?

Jrgen Moltmann

1999 Moral Teology at the End of the CenturyCharles E. Curran


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T r Marqutt Lcturs in Toogy

2000 Is t Rormation ovr?Geofrey Wainwright

2001 In rocssion bor t Wor:Martyrom as ubic Liturgy in ary ristianityRobin Darling Young

2002 ptuaginta Miras in t pcs o ActsLuke Timothy Johnson

2003 T Rcption o atican IILiturgica Rorms in t Li o t urcPierre-Marie Gy, O.P.

2004 Biotics an t ommon GooLisa Sowle Cahill

2005 Di You Rciv t Hoy pirit Wn You Biv?om Basic Qustions or numatoogyDavid Cofey

2006 T Ecumnical Potntial of theScond Vatican CouncilOtto Hermann Pesch

2007Ws witin Ws: Wiiam Bak an t zkisMrkaba in xt an ImagChristopher Rowland


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Documents

Wheels Within Wheels Ezekiels Merkabah WILLIAM BLAKE