Living creatures
Four beings round the throne, covered in eyes — Ezekiel sees them by a river in Babylon and John sees them again in Revelation.
Ezekiel sees four of them in the opening vision and identifies them as cherubim ten chapters later. John sees four again, but the faces are distributed one to each creature rather than four to each, and they have six wings apiece like the seraphim rather than four. Both accounts insist on the eyes — all over, and all round. Whether John is describing the same beings or a related order is not resolved by either text, and the early church assigned the four faces to the four gospels, which is where that convention comes from.
Disputed. Ezekiel names his four as cherubim (10:20). John's four differ in the number of wings and in how the faces are distributed, and the two are not explicitly identified with each other.
Where it appears
See also
- Cherubim — The same four faces, seen again in Revelation