Virtues is one of the nine choirs, or orders, of angels described in The Celestial Hierarchy, a treatise written around the late fifth or early sixth century by the anonymous Christian author known as Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. That work arranges the angels in three triads: the highest of Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones; the middle of Dominions, Virtues and Powers; and the lowest of Principalities, Archangels and Angels. The scheme drew together the various ranks named in scripture, the seraphim of Isaiah, the cherubim of Genesis and Ezekiel, and the thrones, dominions, principalities and powers listed in the Pauline epistles, into a single ordered hierarchy that became standard in medieval Christian theology and was carried further by Thomas Aquinas and by Dante. This entry describes Virtues as a figure of that documented theological and literary tradition.
Virtues renders a different Greek term from the one behind Dominions or Powers: Paul's dynameis, "powers" in a more literal sense, appears in Ephesians 1:21 among the ranks Christ is exalted above, and the Vulgate's Latin choice, virtutes, gave English its somewhat misleading "Virtues," a translation more suggestive of moral excellence than of the raw might the Greek intends. Aquinas assigns this choir responsibility for miracles and for the extraordinary graces granted to the world, distinguishing its office sharply from the disciplinary work he gives to Powers immediately below it.