Angels and their orders

The teaching

As the angelology of Judaism, Christianity and Islam teaches it.

What an angel is

An angel is one who is sent. The Hebrew malakh, the Greek angelos and the Arabic malak all mean a messenger, and the name tells the angel's whole nature: a created spirit, made by God and wholly at God's service, with no errand of its own. When an angel speaks in scripture the word it carries is God's, and when the errand is done it withdraws.

Christian teaching, as Thomas Aquinas sets it out, holds that angels have no bodies: they are pure minds, knowing by ideas given them at their making, and when one is seen it has taken on an appearance for the sake of the one who sees. Maimonides, for Judaism, calls the angels forms without matter.

Islam makes belief in the angels one of the six articles of faith, with belief in God, his books, his messengers, the Last Day and the divine decree. A saying of the Prophet gives the stuff of creation: the angels were made of light, the jinn of smokeless fire and Adam of clay. The Qur'an says that they never disobey God's command, never tire of glorifying him, and ask forgiveness for those on earth.

The angels of the Hebrew Bible

In the oldest stories the angel of the LORD speaks as God himself, to Hagar in the wilderness and to Moses out of the bush that burned and was not consumed. Angels climb the ladder of Jacob's dream, and an angel with a drawn sword stands in Balaam's road.

Two kinds of being guard the divine presence. Cherubim are set with a flaming sword at the east of Eden, and two of beaten gold spread their wings over the mercy seat of the ark; Ezekiel sees them as living creatures with four faces, of a man, a lion, an ox and an eagle, beside wheels full of eyes. Seraphim, the burning ones, stand above the throne in Isaiah's vision. Each has six wings: “with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly,” and they cry to one another, “Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.”

Only two angels are named in the Hebrew Bible, both in the Book of Daniel. Gabriel explains Daniel's visions. Michael is “one of the chief princes” and “the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people,” who will stand up in the time of trouble at the end. The Book of Tobit adds a third: Raphael, who travels with the young Tobias in human form, binds the demon Asmodeus, and reveals that he is one of the seven holy angels who carry up the prayers of the saints.

The archangels

Archangel means chief angel. The New Testament gives the title by name to Michael alone, who disputes with the devil over the body of Moses, and in Revelation Michael and his angels fight the dragon and cast him out of heaven. Gabriel announces the births of John and of Jesus, and says of himself that he stands in the presence of God.

Their names carry their meaning. Michael is a question, who is like God? Gabriel means the strength of God and Raphael God heals. Uriel, the light or the fire of God, appears in the Book of Enoch, which lists the holy angels who watch: Uriel, Raphael, Raguel, Michael, Sariel and Gabriel, with Remiel added in the Greek copies.

The Catholic Church honours three archangels by name, Michael, Gabriel and Raphael, on 29 September. The Orthodox, keeping the feast of Michael and all the bodiless powers on 8 November, add Uriel, Selaphiel, Jegudiel and Barachiel, and in some lists Jerahmeel.

The angels of the Qur'an and the hadith

Jibril, Gabriel, is the greatest of the angels in Islam. He brought the Qur'an down upon the heart of the Prophet, and the Qur'an calls him the Trustworthy Spirit and the Holy Spirit. A famous hadith tells how he came as a man in very white clothes, sat knee to knee with the Prophet and asked him what submission, faith and excellence in worship are. Mika'il, Michael, is named beside him in the Qur'an, and tradition gives him charge of the rain and of provision.

Israfil, whom the hadith names, will sound the trumpet at the Hour. The Angel of Death, whom the Qur'an names only by his office and later tradition calls 'Azra'il, takes each soul at its appointed time. Munkar and Nakir question the dead in the grave about their Lord, their religion and their Prophet. Malik is the keeper of Hell, Ridwan in tradition the keeper of Paradise, and Harut and Marut are the two angels at Babylon who taught nothing without first warning that they were only a trial.

Every person, in this teaching, has angels of their own. Two noble recorders sit at the right and the left and write down every deed, the one on the right, say the commentators, the good and the one on the left the evil. Others follow a person before and behind and guard them by God's command, and a hadith says that angels surround every gathering where God is remembered.

The nine choirs: the first rank

The Celestial Hierarchy, the book that bears the name of Dionysius the Areopagite, gathers nine names from scripture into three ranks of three. Each rank receives light from the one above and passes it to the one below, and every order does three works in its measure: it purifies, it enlightens and it perfects. The first rank stands nearest to God.

Seraphim. Their name means those who kindle, or who make warm. Dionysius reads it as an unceasing motion about the divine, a heat that never cools, and a fire that lifts what is below it into its own likeness, burning away darkness and giving light.

Cherubim. Their name means fullness of knowledge, or an outpouring of wisdom. They are the order that sees: able to receive the first gifts of light, to gaze on the divine beauty, and to pour out freely on those below them the wisdom they are given.

Thrones. Their name says that they are raised above every earthly lack, set firmly and without wavering about the Most High, and wholly open to receive God's coming. They are the bearers of God, steady seats on which the divine is said to rest.

The nine choirs: the second rank

Dominions, the lordships. Their name speaks of a freedom lifted above every low desire and of a longing for the true lordship that is God's; they rule without harshness and lead those beneath them toward the one source of all rule.

Virtues, whose Greek name means the powers. They have a strength that does not falter in any of their works and a courage that never weakens, always rising toward the source of power and passing that strength down to the orders below.

Powers, whose Greek name means the authorities. Theirs is an authority set in good order, never used as a tyrant uses it, raised in harmony toward God and leading the ranks beneath it kindly to the same.

The nine choirs: the third rank

Principalities, the rulers. Their name shows a princely order turned wholly toward the Prince of princes, ruling as they are ruled and leading others in the same way. To this last rank Dionysius gives the care of human affairs and of the nations, and he notes that scripture calls Michael the ruler of the people of Israel.

Archangels. They stand between the principalities above them and the angels below and share in both. They receive the light of the higher orders and make it known, as messengers, to the angels, and through the angels to human beings.

Angels. The last order, and the nearest to the world. The name belongs in a general way to every order, for all are sent, but it belongs most properly to these, who announce to human beings what comes down through the whole hierarchy.

Thomas Aquinas explains the three ranks by how they know: the first sees the reasons of things in God himself, the second in the universal causes, and the third as they are worked out in particular things.

The ten ranks of Maimonides

Maimonides, in the first book of his code, names ten ranks from the highest down: the holy living creatures, the wheels, the valiant ones, the hashmalim, the seraphim, the messengers, the godlike ones, the sons of God, the cherubim, and the ishim, the men, who are the lowest and are the ones who speak with the prophets in their visions. The difference between the ranks, he says, is not one of place but of degree, as one wise man stands above another in wisdom.

Guardian angels and the prayers of the faithful

Jesus says of little children that “in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven,” and from this the Church teaches that each person has a guardian angel from birth. Catholic children learn a short prayer asking their angel to light and guard, to rule and guide. The Talmud tells that two ministering angels walk home with a person from the synagogue on the eve of the Sabbath, and the song Shalom Aleichem greets them at the table.

At the bedtime Shema many Jews say: on my right Michael, on my left Gabriel, before me Uriel, behind me Raphael, and over my head the presence of God. In Islam no angel is prayed to, and every request goes to God alone.

All three faiths keep the same limit. When John falls down to worship at an angel's feet in Revelation, the angel stops him: “See thou do it not: for I am thy fellowservant.” Angels are honoured as servants, and worship belongs to God.