There is little positive Scriptural authority for the popular conception of the angelic form as endowed with wings. The "angels" of the Bible, who visited men, seem to have appeared in the human form, and were often accepted and entertained as men until, through the utterance of some remarkable prophecy or the manifestation of some supernatural quality, their spiritual nature was disclosed. The fact that they were "messengers" of God, may have supplied basis for the idea that they have wings as a means of swift and ethereal progression. The winged cherubim and seraphim seem to belong to a higher order of celestial beings than those designated "angels," since they are always represented as standing in the immediate presence of God in heaven or guarding his dwelling-place on earth. The golden cherubim watching over the mercy-seat in the ark of the covenant were four winged, so were those mighty figures under whose outstretched pinions the ark was placed in Solomon's Temple. Four-winged were the "living creatures" of Ezekiel's dream, "who every one went straight forward whither the spirit was to go." Six-winged were the seraphim of Isaiah's vision, who stood above the "Throne of the Lord," crying, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts"--almost the same song which later the four-winged "beasts" of Revelation cried day and night before the Throne.
