Dr. Dylan Johnson

We're mortal.

We don't live forever.

And so God's line in the end of the story is you are cast out east from Eden to wander forever.

And the gate is barred by a cherub lest you reach out your hand.

Oh, no, these are not fat babies with wings.

These are not.

This is a complete Greco-Romanization.

So away from toddler, we're going in the direction more of a sphinx.

It's a mixed creature.

So it's got the head of a human being and the body of a lion and huge wings.

And if you want, you can go and see exactly what a cherub looks like.

If you go to the Victoria Embankment in London, all the benches right by Cleopatra's Needle there, they have cherubs on them.

Yeah, I think they're likely culprits.

Yeah.

And they're obviously merging a few Greco-Roman motifs in there as well.

Cupid.

And I don't know enough about the Greco-Roman visual tradition, but definitely quite a few of the, we call them Mishvazian, like these mixed entities, sphinxes and cherubs and things of that sort.

These are really common architectural features of Pepe.

palaces.

And we have them in Neo-Assyrian palaces under the name of Lamassu, these giant winged bull creatures.