Red-tailed Hawk Fledgings & Angel’s Horn (St John the Divine)

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Would someone versed in Christian/Episcopal iconography please help me identify the angel on the back end of the roof of St John the Divine overlooking Morningside Drive down below.  The cathedral being St John, is the angel one of the ones from the Christian Book of Revelation (8:6?)? Is this the archangel Gabriel announcing the Christ’s imminent return?  There’s a nest on top and to the back of the head of St. Andrew (?) where these two sassy red-tailed hawks were born earlier this spring. On this warm, humid June day, anti-messianic, they took their perch. They turned this way and that, complementing the sculpture, oblivious to its message of impending doom and redemption. Or have I missed the entire sense of the image?

About zjb

Zachary Braiterman is Professor of Religion in the Department of Religion at Syracuse University. His specialization is modern Jewish thought and philosophical aesthetics. http://religion.syr.edu
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