Winged Creatures

..et quattuor animalia singula eorum habebant alas senas.... Testimonia sunt Veteris Testamenti librorum. Ideo viginti et quatuor totidem faciunt, quot sunt seniores super tribunalia sedentes. Sed sicut animal volare non potest nisi pennas habeat, sic, nec praedicatio Novi Testamenti fidem habeat, nisi habeat per Veteris Testamenti praenuntiata testimonia, per quae tollitur a terra et volat. Semper enim, quod ante dictum est, et postea factum invenitur, illud fidem facit indubitabilem. Rursum et ales si non haereant animalibus, vitam unde trahant, non habent. Nisi enim quae praedixerunt prophetae, in Christo essent consummata, inanis erat praedicatio eorum. Haec est tenet Ecclesia catholica quae et antea predicata, et postea consummata sunt. Et volat quippe et merito tollitur a terra vivum animal. Haereticis autem qui testimonio prophetico non utuntur, adsunt et eis animalia, sed non volant, quia sunt terrena. Judaeis autem qui non accipiunt Novi Testamenti praedicationem, adsunt alae, sed non volant, id est inanem vaticinationem hominibus afferunt, facta dictis non conferentes. Victorinus Petavionensis, Scoli in Apocalypsin Beati Joannis, Caput IV Source: Migne PL 5.325c-326a

...and the four creatures each had six wings...' 1 These are the testimonies of the books of the Old Testament. Thus the twenty four wings in total make as many as there are elders sitting upon the thrones. But as an animal cannot fly unless it has wings, so the announcement of the New Testament gains no faith unless it has the foretold testimonies of the Old Testament, by which it is lifted from the earth and flies. For it is always that which has been told before and is later found to have happened that produces an undoubting faith. Again, if the wings are not attached to the living creatures, they do not have that from which they may draw life. For unless what the prophets foretold had been consummated in Christ, their preaching was vain. The Catholic Church holds those things which were both predicted before and afterwards accomplished. And it flies because rightly the living animal is lifted up from the earth. And there are living creatures for heretics who do not make use of the prophetic testimony, but they do not fly, because they are of the earth. And there are wings for the Jews who do not receive the proclamation of the New Testament, but they cannot fly, that is, they bear a vain prophesying to men, not bringing facts into accord with words. Victorinus of Pettau, Commentary on the Apocalypse of St John, Chapter 4 1 Apoc 4.8