Description Of The "Angelic Hierarchy"
"All three major religions of the Western world, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, as well as virtually all of the world's other systems of religious belief, include celestials in their cosmologies. Their scriptures all contain references to angelic int erventions." "Angels, like people, belong to families or clans. Many names have been given to them, but in the opinion of a number of angel historians, the most familiar can be arranged in three categories, or spheres, starting at the top with those closest to God, and moving down to those who are connected to the physical world." "The word 'angel' itself is used both as a generic term to refer to all heavenly beings, and as a specific term to refer to the members of the third sphere, those closest to the physical. So, too, the word 'archangel' is often used as a generic term to refer to all the high orders of heavenly beings, although they are in fact but one of the higher orders." "According to Abigrael, there are four orders within the heavenly hosts that particularly concern us now: angels, archangels, principalities, and thrones." "While it looks like there is a higher and lower echelon, it's more accurate to visualize all these orders in a great circle, with the "highest" and the "lowest" holding hands. For example, seraphim, who appear to be closest to the Creator, also serve the God in us." In the New Testament celestial beings are grouped into seven ranks: angels, archangels, principalities, powers, virtues, dominions, and thrones. Plus, the Old Testament adds cherubim and seraphim, which with the other seven ranks, comprise the nine choirs of angels in later Christian theology; although the number has generally been fixed at seven. The angels receiving the most attention and veneration were the four angels mentioned in the O.T. and the Apocrypha. All Rights Reserved (C) 1994-2002 by SpiritWeb Org. Switzerland & USA |
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