The Nine Orders of Angels

On holiday in September near the southern edge of Norfolk, I discovered the wonderful late medieval painted rood screens that have survived in a surprising number of the churches of that area. Through the patience of my partner and the technical marvels of my Canon EOS 450D camera I was able to take a lot of reasonably decent photos, without flash (it would be a crime to use flash on those paintings). In the last few days, I have finally found time to process some of the best of these images and put them on Flickr.

The rood screen I loved best of all was in the out-of-the-way church of St Michael and All Angels, Barton Turf. Its highlight is a set of panels depicting each of the Nine Orders of Angels. Presumably once the church had a great painting or statue of St Michael, to complete the set, but that is long gone. However, one of the panels of the very famous rood screen at Ranworth depicts a very fine St Michael. The Barton Turf angels delight me partly because they are so wonderfully decorative, partly because the subject matter (the Nine Orders of Angels) is relatively arcane, but also, it has to be said, because they strike me as, well, a bit camp.

Here are some of my favourites:

And here is the St Michael from the rood screen in the church of St Helen, Ranworth:

The Nine Orders of Angels were more or less invented by a sixth-century Christian Neoplatonist, probably from Syria, who wrote in Greek and called himself Dionysius the Areopagite after an early Christian mentioned in the Book of Acts (chap 17 verse 34). These days he is usually known as 'Pseudo-Dionysius' but in the Middle Ages they thought his writings were really the work of a first-century Christian, and accordingly they were held in high regard. Dionysius states that there are nine orders of angels: seraphims, cherubims, thrones, dominions, powers, virtues, principalities, archangels and angels. The seraphim are the closest to God, and only the last two orders, the archangels and angels, have any dealings with the human race. Dionysius found the seraphims in Isaiah, cherubims in various Old Testament passages, but perhaps especially in Ezekiel, and the thrones, dominions, powers and principalities in Colossians (chap 1, verse 15). I am not sure what gave him the idea of an angelic order of 'virtues' (virtue=Greek δυναμεις).

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Come, then, let us at last, if you please, rest our mental vision from the strain of lofty contemplation, befitting Angels, and descend to the divided and manifold breadth of the many-shaped variety of the Angelic forms …

We must … search, in our first explanation of the types, for what reason the Word of God prefers the sacred description of fire, in preference to almost every other. You will find it, then, representing not only wheels of fire, but also living creatures of fire, and men, flashing, as it were, like lightning, and placing around the Heavenly Beings themselves heaps of coals of fire, and rivers of flame flowing with irresistible force; and also it says that the thrones are of fire; and that the most exalted Seraphim glow with fire, it shews from their appellation, and it attributes the characteristic and energy of fire to them, and throughout, above and below, it prefers pre-eminently the representation by the image of fire. I think, then, the similitude of fire denotes the likeness of the Heavenly Minds to God in the highest degree; for the holy theologians frequently describe the superessential and formless essence by fire, as having many likenesses, if I may be permitted to say so, of the supremely Divine property, as in things visible. For the sensible fire is, so to speak, in everything, and passes through everything unmingled, and springs from all, and whilst all-luminous, is, as it were, hidden, unknown, in its essential nature, when there is no material lying near it upon which it may shew its proper energy. It is both uncontrollable and invisible, self-subduing all things, and bringing under its own energy anything in which it may happen to be; varying, imparting itself to all things near it, whatever they may be; renewing by its rousing heat, and giving light by its uncovered illuminations; invincible, unmingled, separating, unchangeable, elevating, penetrating, lofty; subject to no grovelling inferiority, ever moving, self-moving, moving other things, comprehending, incomprehended, needing no other, imperceptibly increasing itself, displaying its own majesty to the materials receiving it; energetic, powerful, present to all invisibly, unobserved, seeming not to be, and manifesting itself suddenly according to its own proper nature by friction, as it were by a sort of seeking, and again flying away impalpably, undiminished in all the joyful distributions of itself. And one might find many characteristics of fire, appropriate to display the supremely Divine Energy, as in sensible images. The Godly-wise, then, knowing this, depict the celestial Beings from fire, shewing their Godlikeness, and imitation of God, as far as attainable.

But they also depict them under the likeness of men, on account of the intellectual faculty, and their having powers of looking upwards, and their straight and erect form, and their innate faculty of ruling and guiding, and whilst being least, in physical strength as compared with the other powers of irrational creatures, yet ruling over all by their superior power of mind, and by their dominion in consequence of rational science, and their innate unslavishness and indomitableness of soul. It is possible, then, I think, to find within each of the many parts of our body harmonious images of the Heavenly Powers, by affirming that the powers of vision denote the most transparent elevation towards the Divine lights, and again, the tender, and liquid, and not repellent, but sensitive, and pure, and unfolded, reception, free from all passion, of the supremely Divine illuminations.

Now the discriminating powers of the nostrils denote the being able to receive, as far as attainable, the sweet-smelling largess beyond conception, and to distinguish accurately things which are not such, and to entirely reject.

The powers of the ears denote the participation and conscious reception of the supremely Divine inspiration.

The powers of taste denote the fulness of the intelligible nourishments, and the reception of the Divine and nourishing streams.

The powers of touch denote the skilful discrimination of that which is suitable or injurious.

The eyelids and eyebrows denote the guarding of the conceptions which see God.

The figures of manhood and youth denote the perpetual bloom and vigour of life.

The teeth denote the dividing of the nourishing perfection given to us; for each intellectual Being divides and multiplies, by a provident faculty, the unified conception given to it by the more Divine for the proportionate elevation of the inferior.

The shoulders and elbows, and further, the hands, denote the power of making, and operating, and accomplishing.

The heart again is a symbol of the Godlike life, dispersing its own life-giving power to the objects of its forethought, as beseems the good.

The chest again denotes the invincible and protective faculty of the life-giving distribution, as being placed above the heart.

The back, the holding together the whole productive powers of life.

The feet denote the moving and quickness, and skilfulness of the perpetual movement advancing towards Divine things. Wherefore also the Word of God arranged the feet of the holy Minds under their wings; for the wing displays the elevating quickness and the heavenly progress towards higher things, and the superiority to every grovelling thing by reason of the ascending, and the lightness of the wings denotes their being in no respect earthly, but undefiledly and lightly raised to the sublime; and the naked and unshod denotes the unfettered, agile, and unrestrained, and free from all external superfluity, and assimilation to the Divine simplicity, as far as attainable.

But since again the simple and variegated wisdom both clothes the naked, and distributes certain implements to them to carry, come, let us unfold, according to our power, the sacred garments and implements of the celestial Minds. The shining and glowing raiment, I think, signifies the Divine likeness after the image of fire, and their enlightening, in consequence of their repose in Heaven, where is the Light, and their complete illuminating intelligibly, and their being illuminated intellectually; and the sacerdotal robe denotes their conducting to Divine and mystical visions, and the consecration of their whole life. And the girdles signify the guard over their productive powers, and the collected habit of being turned uniformly to It, and being drawn around Itself by an unbroken identity, in a well-ordered circle.

The rods signify the kingly and directing faculty, making all things straight. The spears and the battle-axes denote the dividing of things unlike, and the sharp and energetic and drastic operation of the discriminating powers. The geometrical and technical articles denote the founding, and building, and completing, and whatever else belongs to the elevating and guiding forethought for the subordinate Orders. But sometimes the implements assigned to the holy Angels are the symbols of God's judgments to ourselves; some, representing His correcting instruction or avenging righteousness, others, freedom from peril, or end of education, or resumption of former well-being, or addition of other gifts, small or great, sensible or intelligible. Nor would a discriminating mind, in any case whatever, have any difficulty in properly adapting things visible to things invisible.

Pseudo-Dionysius (c.500)

from On the Heavenly Hierarchy trans John Parker in 1899


Thanks to Roger Pearse, who has transcribed the complete text of this translation of Dionysius's writings and put it online.


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