Purification

February 4, 2010, 8:45 am • Tags: , ,

icon_09A seraph is one of a class of celestial beings mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. Jewish imagery perceived them as having human form, and in that way they passed into the ranks of Christian angels. In the angelic hierarchy, seraphim represent the highest rank of angels. The Seraphim make their first appearance in the Book of Revelation.

As they were developed in the theology, seraphim are envisioned as beings of pure light having direct communication with God. They resonate with the fire symbolically attached to both purification and love. Saraph in all its forms is used to connote a burning, fiery state. Seraphim, as classically depicted, can be identified by their having six wings radiating from the angel’s face at the center. The Seraphim and the Cherubim are, in Christian theology, two separate types of angels. The descriptions of the Seraphim, Cherubim and Ophanim are often similar, but still distinguishable.

The seraphim took on a mystic role in Pico della Mirandola’s Oration on the Dignity of Man (1487), the epitome of Renaissance humanism. Pico took the fiery Seraphim – “they burn with the fire of charity” – as the highest models of human aspiration, in the first flush of optimistic confidence in the human capacity that is the coinage of the Renaissance. “In the light of intelligence, meditating upon the Creator in His work, and the work in its Creator, we shall be resplendent with the light of the Cherubim. If we burn with love for the Creator only, his consuming fire will quickly transform us into the flaming likeness of the Seraphim.”

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