In 2012, I found this beautiful, imposing Celtic Cross in St Margaret’s churchyard which is in Lee, a suburb in south east London. This is a church and churchyard in two halves. The remnants of the older building and its churchyard is across the road from its much larger, Victorian replacement. The older churchyard contains some interesting 18th century memorials and I can recommend exploring if it’s open.
The newer St Margaret’s is also worth exploring if it’s open as it contains Pre-Raphaelite style wall paintings and interesting stained glass. As you might expect, its churchyard mainly contains 19th century memorials as you might expect and then when I went around the back of the church I found this memorial.
This memorial is an example of the Celtic Revival that was popular from 1880-1910 and the Arts & Crafts movement. The epitaph is written in flowing Art Nouveau script and was well worn which rendered it virtually indecipherable. All I could make out was that it was in memory of a deceased wife. This was a real pity as I would have liked to have known more about the person who was buried there and what had happened to her.
I noticed the four symbols; one on each corner of the cross. An ox, an eagle, a lion and an angel. I’d never previously seen this combination on a funerary monument and thought, in my ignorance, that it might have meant that the deceased had loved animals.
But, after posting my photos of the memorial onto The Cemetery Club Facebook page a fellow member replied saying that she thought that the symbols might represent the four evangelists:
Angel = Matthew
Lion = Mark
Ox = Luke
Eagle = John
These were ‘the four canonical gospels with the four living creatures that surround God’s throne’. I had to consult a Bible website for further information and it referred me to the Book of Revelations. In verses 5-8:
‘Around the throne, and on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind, …the first living creature, like a LION, the second living creature like an OX, the third living creature with a face like a HUMAN face (the angel), and the fourth living creature like a flying EAGLE. King James Bible
The four living creatures are also mentioned in Ezekiel 1: verses 1-1 as well as in other religious texts such as St Irenaeus of Lyons and St Augustine of Hippo.
The four symbols are known as a tetramorph. This is a symbolic arrangement of four different elements and is derived from the Greek tetra, meaning four, and morph, which means shape.
In Christian art, the tetramorph is the union of the symbols of the Four Evangelists, the four living creatures into a single figure, or more commonly, a group of four figures. Portraits of the four evangelists are often accompanied by the tetramorphs or the symbols often used to represent them as in the image below.
Each symbol can be described as a tetramorph in the singular, and a group as the tetramorphs but usually only when all four are together. Tetramorphs were very common in early medieval art especially in illuminated Gospel books. They are still common in religious art up to the present day. Other examples of the combination of different elements are the Sphinx in Egypt which has the body of a lion and the head of a human.
The animals associated with the Christian tetramorph originated in the Babylonian symbols of the four fixed signs of the zodiac; the Ox representing Taurus; the lion representing Leo, the eagle representing Scorpio and the man or angel representing Aquarius. In Western astrology the four symbols are associated with the elements of, respectively Earth, Fire, Water and Air. The creatures of the Christian tetramorph were also common in Egyptian, Greek and Assyrian mythology. Early Christians adopted this symbolism and adapted it for the four Evangelists as the tetramorph, which first appears in Christian art in the 5th century.
There is a tetramorph in Ely Cathedral and also over the entrance door to St Augustine’s church in Kilburn, north London. I have also found two more in London’s Brompton Cemetery but not as well carved and, although large, not quite as imposing.
But the one in St Margaret’s churchyard is a lovely monument which is beautifully carved and really stands out in the churchyard due to its size and position.
References and further reading
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetramorph
The lion, the bull, the eagle and the angel: the Tetramorph | Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya
shadows fly away 