Cherub Book 5

[Danielle Just]

InJewish angelic hierarchy, cherubim have the ninth (second-lowest) rank in Maimonides' Mishneh Torah (12th century), and the third rank in Kabbalistic works such as Berit Menuchah (14th century). The Christian work De Coelesti Hierarchia places them in the highest rank alongside Seraphim and Thrones.[3]

In Islam, al-karubiyyin "cherubim" or al-muqarrabin "the Close" refers to the highest angels near God,[4] in contrast to the messenger angels. They include the Bearers of the Throne, the angels around the throne, and the archangels.[5] The angels of mercy subordinative to Michael are also identified as cherubim. In Isma'ilism, there are Seven Archangels referred to as cherubim.[6]

The traditional Hebrew conception of cherubim as guardians of the Garden of Eden is backed by the belief of beings of superhuman power and devoid of human feelings, whose duty it was to represent the gods, and as guardians of their sanctuaries to repel intruders; these conceptions in turn are similar to an account found on Tablet 9 of the inscriptions found at Nimrud.[2]

Aside from Ezekiel's vision, no detailed attestations of cherubim survive, and Ezekiel's description of the tetramorph being may not be the same as the cherubim of the historic Israelites.[16] All that can be gleaned about the cherubim of the Israelites come from potential equivalences in the cultures which surrounded them.

The appearance of the cherubim continue to be a subject of debate. Mythological hybrids are common in the art of the Ancient Near East. One example is the Babylonian lamassu or shedu, a protective spirit with a sphinx-like form, possessing the wings of an eagle, the body of a lion or bull, and the head of a king. This was adopted largely in Phoenicia. The wings, because of their artistic beauty and symbolic use as a mark of creatures of the heavens, soon became the most prominent part, and animals of various kinds were adorned with wings; consequently, wings were bestowed also upon human forms,[2] thus leading to the stereotypical image of an angel.[17]

In particular resonance with the idea of cherubim embodying the throne of God, numerous pieces of art from Phoenicia, Ancient Egypt, and even Tel Megiddo in northern Israel depict kings or deities being carried on their thrones by hybrid winged creatures.[17]

If this animalistic form is how the ancient Israelites envisioned cherubim, it raises more questions than it answers. For one, it is difficult to visualize the cherubim of the Ark of the Covenant as quadrupedal creatures with backward-facing wings, as these cherubim were meant to face each other and have their wings meet, while still remaining on the edges of the cover from which they were beaten. At the same time, these creatures have little to no resemblance to the cherubim in Ezekiel's vision.

On the other hand, even if cherubim had a more humanoid form, this still would not entirely match Ezekiel's vision and likewise seemingly clashes with the apparently equivalent archetypes of the cultures surrounding the Israelites, which almost uniformly depicted beings which served analogous purposes to Israel's cherubim as largely animalistic in shape. All of this may indicate that the Israelite conception of the cherub's appearance may not have been wholly consistent.[16]

Many forms of Judaism include a belief in the existence of angels, including cherubim within the Jewish angelic hierarchy. The existence of angels is generally accepted within traditional rabbinic Judaism. There is, however, a wide range of beliefs within Judaism about what angels actually are and how literally one should interpret biblical passages associated with them.

In Kabbalah there has long been a strong belief in cherubim, the cherubim and other angels regarded as having mystical roles. The Zohar, a highly significant collection of books in Jewish mysticism, states that the cherubim were led by one of their number named Kerubiel.[2]

On the other end of the philosophical spectrum is Maimonides, who had a neo-Aristotelian interpretation of the Bible. Maimonides writes that to the wise man, one sees that what the Bible and Talmud refer to as "angels" are actually allusions to the various laws of nature; they are the principles by which the physical universe operates.

For all forces are angels! How blind, how perniciously blind are the naive?! If you told someone who purports to be a sage of Israel that the Deity sends an angel who enters a woman's womb and there forms an embryo, he would think this a miracle and accept it as a mark of the majesty and power of the Deity, despite the fact that he believes an angel to be a body of fire one third the size of the entire world. All this, he thinks, is possible for God.But if you tell him that God placed in the sperm the power of forming and demarcating these organs, and that this is the angel, or that all forms are produced by the Active Intellect; that here is the angel, the "vice-regent of the world" constantly mentioned by the sages, then he will recoil.

For he [the naive person] does not understand that the true majesty and power are in the bringing into being of forces which are active in a thing although they cannot be perceived by the senses ... Thus the Sages reveal to the aware that the imaginative faculty is also called an angel; and the mind is called a cherub. How beautiful this will appear to the sophisticated mind, and how disturbing to the primitive.

Maimonides says that the figures of the cherubim were placed in the sanctuary only to preserve among the people the belief in angels, there being two in order that the people might not be led to believe that they were the image of God.[27]

Cherubim are discussed within the midrash literature. The two cherubim placed by God at the entrance of paradise[28] were angels created on the third day, and therefore they had no definite shape; appearing either as men or women, or as spirits or angelic beings.[29] The cherubim were the first objects created in the universe.[30] The following sentence of the Midrash is characteristic:

When a man sleeps, the body tells to the soul (neshamah) what it has done during the day; the soul then reports it to the spirit (nefesh), the spirit to the angel, the angel to the cherub, and the cherub to the seraph, who then brings it before God".[31][32]

In early Jewish tradition there existed the notion that cherubim had youthful, human features, due to the etymologization of the name by Abbahu (3rd century). Before this, some early midrashic literature conceived of the cherubim as non-corporeal. In the first century AD, Josephus claimed:

A midrash states that when Pharaoh pursued Israel at the Red Sea, God took a cherub from the wheels of His throne and flew to the spot, for God inspects the heavenly worlds while sitting on a cherub. The cherub, however, is "something not material", and is carried by God, not vice versa.[33][34][35]

In the passages of the Talmud that describe the heavens and their inhabitants, the seraphim, ofanim, and living creatures are mentioned, but not the cherubim;[36] and the ancient liturgy also mentions only these three classes.

Cherubim are regarded in traditional Christian angelology as angels of the second highest order of the ninefold celestial hierarchy.[39] De Coelesti Hierarchia (c. 5th century) lists them alongside Seraphim and Thrones.[3]

al-Karubiyyin,[42] according to the Quran, are identified as a class of al-muqarrabin,[43] and are a class of angels near the presence of God. They are entrusted with praising God and interceding for humans.[44] They are usually identified either with a class of angels separate or include various angels absorbed in the presence of God: the canonical four Islamic archangels Jibra'il, Mika'il, Azra'el, and Israfil, the actual cherubim and the Bearers of the Throne.[45]

The Twelver Shi'a scholar Mohammad-Baqer Majlesi narrates about a fallen cherub encountered by Muhammad in the form of a snake. The snake tells him that he did not perform dhikr (remembrance of God) for a moment so God was angry with him and cast him down to earth in the form of a snake. Then Muhammad went to Hasan and Husayn. Together they interceded (tawassul) for the angel and God restored him to his angelic form.[53] A similar story appears in Tabari's Bishara. An angel called Futrus, described as an "angel-cherub" (malak al-karubiyyin), was sent by God, but since the angel failed to complete his task in time, God broke one of his wings. Muhammad interceded for the cherub, and God forgave the fallen angel, whereupon he became the guardian for Hussain's grave.[54]

Inspired by the soft + angelic cherubs, enjoy an elegant angelcore theme with this ultra-calming bujo. Wrapped in a cream linen fabric cover + decorated with an adorable gold foil cherub + filled with our signature bright white dot grid notebook paper.

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