The Four Evangelists are the four followers of Jesus to whom are ascribed the writings forming the four Gospels of the New Testament: the Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

The evangelists, along with their symbols in iconography, are:

• Matthew the Evangelist, the author of the first gospel, symbolized by a man, to represent the human nature of Christ, and also because the Gospel starts with Jesus' genealogy from Abraham.
• Mark the Evangelist, the author of the second gospel, symbolized by a lion, to represent Christ as king. Mark has John the Baptist preaching "like a lion roaring" at the beginning of his Gospel.
• Luke the Evangelist, the author of the third gospel, symbolized by a bull or a calf, to represent Christ as sacrifice and as priest, or to symbolize God's power. This also represents Mary as obedient, like an ox, as this is the only Gospel where she says something.
• John the Evangelist, the author of the fourth gospel, symbolized by an eagle, to represent the Christ as God, or to represent God's "all-seeing eye", and also due to the fact that John has some things recrded in his Gospel which the other three synoptic do not contain. Having a "higher" level of theology and also to separate it from the other "terrestrial" animals are more reasons as to why an eagle was chosen. This replaced the scorpion as a sign early on (see Tetramorph).

The attribution of the four animals comes from the four living creatures described in the Book of Revelation, though their the matches have sometimes been disputed. The symbol of Matthew, the man, for example, is sometimes mistaken for an angel, but this is due to the fact that wings are given to all four symbols.

See also

• Authorship of the Johannine works
• Tetramorph
• Gospel

External links

• The Four Evangelists in Stained Glass
• The Four Evangelists (contains some information on the attribution of the four animals, and also a text by Augustine of Hippo disputing the attribution.

New Testament

Evangelist | Evangelist | Evangelista | Evangelista | Evangeliste | Evangelist | 福音書記者 | Évaungùieus | Евангелисты | Evankelista | Evangelist