Angelic · First Sphere · c. 400 BCE
Seraphim
Also called Seraphs, The Burning Ones · also recorded as שרף, שרפים (per Wikidata)
Six-winged and burning, they attend the throne directly and sing the trisagion. Their name is the Hebrew verb 'to burn'.
Deep source base
The seraphim appear once in scripture, in Isaiah's throne vision, and that single passage carries the entire later tradition. Each has six wings — two covering the face, two the feet, one pair for flight — and they call to one another continuously. One takes a live coal from the altar with tongs and touches Isaiah's mouth, the origin of their association with purification by fire. Pseudo-Dionysius places them closest to God on the reasoning that love, not knowledge, is the highest relation.
Identity
Where does the name come from?
What the name means
Hebrew *seraphim*, plural of *saraph*. BDB (1906) files the noun first as a fiery and usually venomous serpent — the *saraph* of Numbers 21, the flying *saraph* of Isaiah 14 and 30 — and derives even that only possibly from the root s-r-p, 'to burn', through the burning effect of the venom. The seraphim of Isaiah 6 it takes as probably the same word, of beings originally conceived with serpents' bodies. The familiar gloss 'the burning ones' skips both steps: the burning attaches to the snake before it attaches to the angel, and BDB hedges each stage rather than either.
Where it was actually worshipped
No site of its own. Angels are venerated in the liturgy — a feast day, a dedication, a name in a prayer — rather than housed at a place the way a god is.
A figure with temples and a figure that only ever existed on a page are different kinds of thing, and the difference is easy to lose once both are entries in a list.
At a glance
Vitals
Vitals
Also known as
- First attested
- Hebrew Bible & Deuterocanon · c. 900–100 BCE
- Named there as
- Seraphims
- Rank
- First Choir
- Order
- First Sphere
- Base of operations
- No site of its own. Angels are venerated in the liturgy — a feast day, a dedication, a name in a prayer — rather than housed at a place the way a god is.
- Era
- c. 400 BCE
- Traditions
- Christian, Jewish
- Placed in
- The Nine ChoirsThe Ten Ranks
Traits
- Domain
- Divine love, purification by fire, unceasing praise
- Element
- Fire
- Traditional form
- Six wings, burning, often reduced to a face amid wings
- Sphere
- First — closest to the throne
Stats
Known connections
2 attributed
What is it said to do?
Where these powers cluster
The 2 offices attributed to Seraphim, grouped by kind. Segment width is the share of powers falling in each category.
A bar dominated by one colour means a specialist; an even spread means a figure the sources credit with almost anything.
- material1
- social1
material
- HealsHebrew Bible & Deuterocanon
Purgation of Isaiah's lips with the coal.
social
5 texts
Which texts say so, and where do they disagree?
When these texts were written
Each dot is one of the 5 texts that names Seraphim, placed at that text's approximate date.
A wide spread means the figure was carried across many centuries and traditions; a tight cluster means a single period produced the whole record.
5 texts spanning roughly 1,670 years
Where the texts differ
- Name: given as Seraphims, Seraphim
- Rank: given as Attendants of the throne; First choir of the first sphere; Fifth of ten ranks
- Position in list: 1, 5 depending on the text
Stand above the throne, each with six wings, crying 'Holy, holy, holy'.
“Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings.”
Their name signifies burning; ever in motion around the divine, imparting their own heat downward.
One of the nine orders as Gregory enumerates them, named for the office it performs rather than for its rank in contemplation.
Placed mid-table, a demotion of four places against the Dionysian order.
Placed among the nine orders and assigned a degree of illumination, in the question on the angelic hierarchies (I, q. 108).
Connections
What is it connected to?
Commands Cherubim
the Seraphim stand immediately above the Cherubim within the first triad, and illuminate them. The claim is transmission of light and knowledge, not command in any military sense.
Identified with The Amesha Spentas
The structural model for ranked spirits attending a single lord.
Opposed by The Qliphoth
Ten shells mirroring and inverting the ten sefirot.
Placement
Where does it sit in the hierarchies?
Answered from the sources
Common questions
Which texts mention Seraphim?
Is Seraphim the same as The Amesha Spentas?
What rank is Seraphim?
How else is Seraphim spelled?
What is Seraphim said to do?
How old is Seraphim?
Nearest in the corpus
If Seraphim is what you came for, these are next
Chosen by proximity rather than by popularity: the same pantheon first, then the same rank, then the same kind of figure.
Cherubim
Second Choir · First Sphere
Guardians of thresholds and bearers of the throne — four-faced in Ezekiel, flanking the mercy seat in Exodus, and nothing at all like the winged infants of later art.
Dominions
Fourth Choir · Second Sphere
The administrative choir: they regulate the duties of lower angels and never act directly on the created world.
Gabriel
Archangel · Archangels / Chief Princes
The messenger. The angel who explains Daniel's visions, announces two births in Luke, and in Islam delivers the entire Qur'an.
Michael
Archangel · Archangels / Chief Princes
The warring archangel: prince of Israel in Daniel, captain of the host in Revelation, and the only angel the New Testament calls an archangel outright.
Thrones
Third Choir · First Sphere
The wheels of the chariot — rings of fire studded with eyes, on which divine justice is said to be seated.
Angels
Ninth Choir · Third Sphere
The ninth and closest of the angelic choirs: the ordinary messengers who deal with individual people, and the only rank most human accounts ever describe meeting.
The books behind Seraphim
Every claim on this profile is attributed to one of these. They are public domain, listed oldest first, and each links to a full text where one is freely available.
Hebrew Bible & Deuterocanon
Various · c. 900–100 BCE · Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek
Read Hebrew Bible & Deuterocanon in full ↗Cover: Public domain · see en:Aleppo Codex; scanned by · Wikimedia file page
De Coelesti Hierarchia (The Celestial Hierarchy)
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite · c. 500 CE · Greek
Read De Coelesti Hierarchia (The Celestial Hierarchy) in full ↗Cover: Public domain · Unknown author · Wikimedia file page
Homilies on the Gospels, Homily 34
Gregory the Great · c. 590 CE · Latin
Read Homilies on the Gospels, Homily 34 in full ↗Cover: CC0 · British Library · Wikimedia file page
Mishneh Torah, Yesodei ha-Torah
Moses Maimonides · c. 1180 · Hebrew
Read Mishneh Torah, Yesodei ha-Torah in full ↗Cover: Public domain · Blaisio Ugolino · Wikimedia file page
Summa Theologiae, Treatise on the Angels
Thomas Aquinas; tr. Fathers of the English Dominican Province · c. 1265-1274 · Latin
Read Summa Theologiae, Treatise on the Angels in full ↗Cover: Public domain · Wikimedia file page
Corpus last revised 29 August 2026. A reference site’s credibility rests on being maintained, so this is the date the sourced records last changed — not the date the page was rebuilt.