The Names and Their Scripture

The nine ranks are not invented names but scriptural ones, gathered into an order. This file walks the nine — Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones; Dominions, Powers, Authorities; Principalities, Archangels, Angels — giving the biblical text behind each and the meaning the Fathers read from it. It also reports honestly that the tradition did not order the ranks with one voice: the sequences of Dionysius, of the Pauline lists, and of other Fathers differ, and the ninefold arrangement is a synthesis, not a datum handed down verbatim.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox

The Names Come from Scripture

The achievement of the Celestial Hierarchy was not to coin the names of the angelic orders but to gather names already scattered through Scripture into a single ordered scheme (see The Dionysian Hierarchy). Every one of the nine is a biblical word; the Bible, however, nowhere lists them in order or tells us there are exactly nine. Dionysius (and the tradition after him) assembled the order by reading the visions of the prophets and the lists of St. Paul together (Celestial Hierarchy 6–9; trans. Luibheid–Rorem, 1987; Rorem, Pseudo-Dionysius: A Commentary, Oxford, 1993). Here are the nine with their sources.

The First Triad — Nearest to God

Seraphim (Hebrew śerāphîm, “burning ones”). The name comes from the vision of Isaiah: “Above it stood the seraphim: each one had six wings… and one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts” (Isaiah 6:2–3). Dionysius reads the name as “burning” or “fire-making,” and takes the Seraphim to be aflame with love and ceaselessly casting their fire upon those below — the order of purest love, nearest the divine fire (Celestial Hierarchy 7.1; Luibheid–Rorem, 1987). It is a Seraph who touches Isaiah’s lips with the coal from the altar (Isaiah 6:6–7), an image the liturgy takes up at Communion (see The Angelic Liturgy).

Cherubim (Hebrew kerûbîm). The Cherubim appear guarding the way to Eden (Genesis 3:24), overshadowing the mercy-seat of the ark (Exodus 25:18–22), and borne through the visions of Ezekiel as the living creatures of the divine chariot (Ezekiel 1; 10). Dionysius reads the name as signifying “fullness of knowledge” and “outpouring of wisdom” — the order of the fullest contemplation and illumination (Celestial Hierarchy 7.1; Luibheid–Rorem, 1987). God is repeatedly said to be “enthroned upon the cherubim” (Psalm 80:1; 99:1).

Thrones (Greek thronoi). The Thrones come from the Pauline list of Colossians 1:16 (“whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers”). Dionysius reads them as the orders utterly free of all earthly defect, lifted up and bearing God — the seats, so to speak, of the divine session, on which God is borne and rests (Celestial Hierarchy 7.1; Luibheid–Rorem, 1987; the connection to Daniel’s “thrones… cast down [set up]” and the Ancient of Days, Daniel 7:9, is drawn by later commentators).

The Second Triad — Governance and Order

Dominions (or Lordships; Greek kyriotētes), Powers (or Virtues; Greek dynameis), and Authorities (or “Powers”/Potentates; Greek exousiai): all three are drawn from the Pauline enumerations of the heavenly orders — “all things were created… whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers” (Colossians 1:16), and “far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named” (Ephesians 1:21; cf. Romans 8:38; 1 Peter 3:22). Dionysius takes the middle triad as the orders of governance and order in the cosmos — the Dominions signifying an unenslaved, God-conforming lordship, the Powers a virile and unshaken strength for the divine operations, the Authorities an ordered and harmonious exercise of God-given rule (Celestial Hierarchy 8; Luibheid–Rorem, 1987). The English renderings of this triad vary widely between translations precisely because the Greek terms overlap and the same words are translated differently — a point that itself signals how much of the ordering is interpretive.

The Third Triad — Nearest to Us

Principalities (or Rulers; Greek archai), Archangels (Greek archangeloi), and Angels (Greek angeloi): the Principalities and the ground-word “powers/rulers” come again from the Pauline lists (Ephesians 1:21; Colossians 1:16); the Archangels are named in Scripture — Michael is called “one of the chief princes” and “the great prince” (Daniel 10:13; 12:1), and “Michael the archangel” contends with the devil (Jude 9), while “the voice of the archangel” sounds at the Lord’s coming (1 Thessalonians 4:16); the Angels are named throughout the Bible as God’s messengers. Dionysius reads this lowest triad as the orders turned toward the created world — the Principalities presiding over the ordering of peoples and nations, the Archangels as the great messengers who bear God’s chief tidings, and the Angels as the messengers nearest to individual human beings (Celestial Hierarchy 9; Luibheid–Rorem, 1987). It is from this triad, Dionysius notes, that the guardians of nations and of persons are drawn (see Angels of Churches and Nations).

The Orderings Differ — an Honest Note

The ninefold arrangement of Dionysius became standard, but it was neither the only ordering in the tradition nor a datum received verbatim from the apostles. The Fathers who compiled these lists ordered them differently, because Scripture supplies the names without a sequence.

[Disputed: the number, grouping, and order of the angelic ranks vary across the tradition, and the ninefold Dionysian scheme is a synthesis rather than a unanimous inheritance. (a) Dionysius (*Celestial Hierarchy* 6–9) gives the now-standard nine in three triads. (b) St. Paul's own lists neither number nine nor agree in order among themselves: Ephesians 1:21 names "principality, and power, and might, and dominion"; Colossians 1:16 names "thrones… dominions… principalities… powers"; the two overlap but are not identical, and neither mentions Seraphim, Cherubim, Angels, or Archangels together. (c) Earlier and other Fathers order the ranks otherwise — St. Cyril of Jerusalem and St. John Chrysostom, for example, give lists of the heavenly orders that differ from the Dionysian sequence and do not always yield exactly nine (the variation is surveyed in Daniélou, *The Angels and Their Mission*, 1957; and noted in the Dionysius collection, [The Celestial Hierarchy](../../st-dionysius-the-areopagite/04-the-hierarchies/the-celestial-hierarchy.md), citing Rorem 1993). (d) St. John of Damascus, transmitting the Dionysian nine, himself remarks that "the more sacred theologians" order and name the ranks variously and that the exact arrangement is beyond precise knowledge (John of Damascus, *Exact Exposition* II.3). What the tradition holds firmly is the *existence* of many ordered ranks and the scriptural *names*; the precise sequence it holds as a venerable ordering, not a defined dogma.]

The Damascene’s own caution is the properest note on which to leave the ranks. Having handed on the nine, he adds that the angels “are named according to their illumination” and that the highest orders impart their gifts to the lower, but that the fullness of their nature and ordering “is known to the Creator alone” (John of Damascus, Exact Exposition II.3; trans. NPNF II/9). The names are Scripture’s; the order is the tradition’s best reading of them; and the reserve proper to a creature contemplating a higher creation is the Fathers’ own (see Dogma and Pious Opinion).

See Also

References

  • Pseudo-Dionysius. The Celestial Hierarchy 6–9, in The Complete Works. Trans. Colm Luibheid and Paul Rorem. New York: Paulist Press, 1987. (The nine names, their scriptural sources, and their meanings; the triads.)
  • John of Damascus. An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, II.3. Trans. NPNF II/9. (The transmission of the nine ranks and the reserve about their exact ordering.)
  • Scripture: Isaiah 6:2–3, 6–7; Genesis 3:24; Exodus 25:18–22; Ezekiel 1, 10; Psalm 80:1, 99:1; Daniel 7:9, 10:13, 12:1; Colossians 1:16; Ephesians 1:21; Romans 8:38; 1 Peter 3:22; Jude 9; 1 Thessalonians 4:16.
  • Rorem, Paul. Pseudo-Dionysius: A Commentary. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. (The scheme as synthesis; the variation in the tradition.)
  • Daniélou, Jean. The Angels and Their Mission According to the Fathers of the Church. Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1957. (The Fathers’ varying lists of the orders.)