We can trace this appellation of a “secret” God still farther back. In the _Kabala_ the “Son” of the _concealed_ Father who dwells in light and glory, is the “Anointed,” the _Seir-Anpin_, who unites in himself all the Sephiroth, he is Christos, or the Heavenly man. It is through Christ that the Pneuma, or the Holy Ghost, creates “all things” (_Ephesians_ iii. 9), and produces the four elements, air, water, fire, and earth. This assertion is unquestionable, for we find Irenæus basing on this fact his best argument for the necessity of there being four gospels. There can be neither more nor fewer than four--he argues. “For as there are four quarters of the world, and four general winds (καθολικὰ πνεύματα) ... it is right that she (the Church) should have four pillars. From which it is manifest that the Word, _the maker of all_, he _who sitteth upon the Cherubim_ ... as David says, supplicating his advent, ‘Thou that sittest between the Cherubim, shine forth!’ For the Cherubim also are _four-faced_ and their faces are symbols of the working of the Son of God.”[456] We will not stop to discuss at length the special holiness of the four-faced Cherubim, although we might, perhaps, show their origin in all the ancient pagodas of India, in the _vehans_ (or vehicles) of their chief gods; as likewise we might easily attribute the respect paid to them to the kabalistic wisdom, which, nevertheless, the Church rejects with great horror. But, we cannot resist the temptation to remind the reader that he may easily ascertain the several significances attributed to these Cherubs by reading the _Kabala_. “When the souls are to leave their abode,” says the _Sohar_, holding to the doctrine of the pre-existence of souls in the world of emanations, “each soul separately appears before the Holy King, dressed in a sublime form, with the features in which it is to appear in this world. It is from this sublime form that the image proceeds” (_Sohar_, iii., p. 104 ab). Then it goes on to say that the types or forms of these faces are four in number--those of the angel or man, of the lion, the bull, and the eagle. Furthermore, we may well express our wonder that Irenæus should not have re-enforced his argument for the four gospels--by citing the whole Pantheon of the four-armed Hindu gods? Ezekiel in representing his four animals, now called Cherubim, as types of the four symbolical beings, which, in his visions support the throne of Jehovah, had not far to go for his models. The Chaldeo-Babylonian protecting genii were familiar to him; the Sed, Alap or _Kirub_ (Cherubim), the bull, with the human face; the Nirgal, human-headed lion; Oustour the Sphinx-man; and the Nathga, with its eagle’s head. The religion of the masters--the idolatrous Babylonians and Assyrians--was transferred almost bodily into the revealed Scripture of the Captives, and from thence came into Christianity.