Cherub

The numerous depictions of cherubim assign to them many different roles, such as protecting the entrance of the Garden of Eden.

The Christian work De Coelesti Hierarchia places them in the highest rank alongside Seraphim and Thrones.

[8](pp 3–4) The folk etymology connecting cherub to a Hebrew word for "youthful" is due to Abbahu (3rd century).

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.

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.

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.

[8](p 1) While Israelite tradition must have conceived of the cherubim as guardians of the Garden of Eden[2] in which they guard the way to the Tree of life,[16] they are often depicted as performing other roles; for example in the Book of Ezekiel, they transport Yahweh's throne.

[8](pp 84–85) In Exodus 25:18–22, God tells Moses to make multiple images of cherubim at specific points around the Ark of the Covenant.

[8](pp 2–4) In rabbinic literature, the two cherubim are described as being human-like figures with wings, one a boy and the other a girl, placed on the opposite ends of the Mercy seat in the inner-sanctum of God's house.

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.

The Zohar, a highly significant collection of books in Jewish mysticism, states that the cherubim were led by one of their number named Kerubiel.

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.

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.

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 ...

[27][28]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).

In the Talmud, Jose the Galilean holds[33] that when the Birkat Hamazon (grace after meals) is recited by at least ten thousand seated at one meal, a special blessing Blessed is Ha-Shem our God, the God of Israel, who dwells between the cherubimis added to the regular liturgy.

– Ezekiel 10:14In Medieval theology, following the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius, the cherubim are the second highest rank in the angelic hierarchy, following the seraphim and preceding the Thrones.

[34] Cherubim are regarded in traditional Christian angelology as angels of the second highest order of the ninefold celestial hierarchy.

[36] In Western art, cherubim became associated with the putto and the Greco-Roman god Cupid/Eros, with depictions as small, plump, winged boys.

[8](p 1) Artistic representations of cherubim in Early Christian and Byzantine art sometimes diverged from scriptural descriptions.

The earliest known depiction of the tetramorph cherubim is the 5th–6th century apse mosaic found in the Thessalonian Church of Hosios David.

[40] In a 13th–14th-century work called "Book of the Wonders of Creation and the peculiarities of Existing Things", the cherubim belong to an order below the Bearers of the Throne, who in turn are identified with seraphim instead.

The Twelver Shi'a scholar Mohammad-Baqer Majlesi narrates about a fallen cherub encountered by Muhammad in the form of a snake.

Muhammad interceded for the cherub, and God forgave the fallen angel, whereupon he became the guardian for Hussain's grave.