Divinity Atlas

Sacred Correspondences
Articles

The Nine Choirs of Angels

Citation Formats

General Reference

APA Style

BibTeX

Learn More
The Nine Choirs of Angels

The nine choirs of angels (seraphim, cherubim, thrones, dominions, virtues, powers, principalities, archangels and angels), are the ranks of the celestial hierarchy in Christian angelology, arranged in three triads of three. The seraphim, nearest to God, burn with love; the lowest choirs, the archangels and angels, are those most concerned with human affairs.

The ordering comes from the Celestial Hierarchy attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite, a work of around the fifth or sixth century, and was taken up by later theologians such as Thomas Aquinas, becoming the standard scheme of Western Christian thought about the angels.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Article On

Sources
Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.

View At A Past Year

The atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.