Christian angelic hierarchy
The Nine Choirs of Angels are a going back to the early Middle Ages classification of celestial beings of Christian mythology into nine orders.
The first recorded mention of the nine orders can be found in the 6th century in Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite in his book about the heavenly hierarchy ( Περί τῆς οὐρανίας ἱεραρχίας, De caelesti hierarchia ). From Gregory the Great were taken over these nine orders. In Latin, the orders read: angeli, Archangeli, virtutes, potestates, principatus, femdom TIONES, Throni, cherubim, seraphim. In German, the terms usually with angels, archangels, principalities, powers, principalities ( estates ), dominations, thrones, cherubim and seraphim are reproduced. Gregory refers to the Scriptures: And of the angels and archangels witness almost every page of the Cherubim and Seraphim the prophets. Paul Four more counting on in Ephesians: supra omnem principatum potestatem et et et virtutem dominationem ( Eph 1:21 VUL ); in German: far above all rule and authority and power and dominion ( Eph 1.21 EU). The thrones are found - together with other orders - in Colossians: immersive Throni immersive dominant TIONES immersive principatus immersive potestates ( Col. 1:16 VUL ); German: thrones and dominions, principalities and powers (Col 1.16 EU). Pseudo-Dionysius divides the nine orders into three hierarchical levels: the highest includes seraphim, cherubim, Throni, the average dominant TIONES, virtutes, potestates and the lowest principes, Archangeli, angeli. When Gregory and other authors find light variations of these hierarchies; the order and hierarchy of the choirs of angels in medieval times the subject of scholarly debate. From the 7th century, the doctrine spread primarily by Isidore of Seville, who devotes a chapter of his Etymologiae the angels.
John Scotus Eriugena in the ninth century translated the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius into Latin and handed it to Charles the Bald. As a result, the doctrine gained from the heavenly hierarchies an extraordinarily wide distribution and has been treated by many authors, for example, of Peter Lombard, Hugh of Saint Victor, Alanus from Insulis and Thomas Aquinas. Even in medieval poetry, the angelic hierarchies are treated as Rabanus Maurus in, in the sequences of Notker Balbulus and Hildegard of Bingen. In Canto XXVIII of the Paradiso in Dante's Divine Comedy Beatrice explains the nine orders of angels.
Roman Missal are in various choirs of angels named in the text of the prefaces.
" The Nine Choirs of Angels" is a rare patronage of Catholic churches, most notably the Church is at the court in Vienna.