(115) Antiquity has represented the Angels in Pictures like Men with Wings, but they have no need of any Wings, yet they have Hands and Feet as Men have, but after a heavenly Manner and Kind.

(5) Now it is evident, as I think, that the distribution of the fontal perfume to the Beings above ourselves, who are more Divine, is, as it were, nearer, and manifests and distributes itself more to the transparent and wholesome mental condition of their receptive faculty, overflowing ungrudgingly and entering in many fashions; but as regards the subordinate contemplators, which are not so receptive, piously concealing the highest vision and participation, it is distributed in a supremely Divine proportion, in fragrance corresponding to the recipients. Amongst the holy Beings, then, who are above us, the superior order of the Seraphim is represented under the figure of the twelve wings, established and fixed around Jesus, casting itself upon the most blessed contemplations of Him, as far as permissible, and filled reverently with the contemplated truth distributed in most pure receptions, and, to speak after the manner of men, crying aloud, with never silent lips, the frequent Hymn of Praise; for the sacred knowledge of the supermundane minds is both untiring, and possesses the Divine love without intermission, and is at the same time superior to all baseness and forgetfulness. Hence, as I think, that phrase, "unceasing cry," suggests their perpetual and persistent science and conception of things Divine, with full concord and thanksgiving.

(11) The holy Angels live in the Power of Meekness, of the Light and Joyfulness: And the Devils live in the Power of the rising or elevating Quality of Fierceness, Terror, and gross Darkness, and cannot comprehend the Light; into which Condition they precipitated and cast themselves through their Pride and Elevation of themselves, as I shall show afterwards, when I shall write of the Creation. But

(65) Behold, O Child of Man! All the Angels were created in the first Principle, and by the outflowing Spirit were formed, and made a Body in a true angelical and spiritual Manner, and enlightened from the Light of God, that they might increase the paradisical Joy, and abide [therein] eternally. But seeing they were to abide eternally, they must be figured [or formed] out of the indissoluble Band, out of the first Principle, which is an indissoluble Band; and they ought to look upon the Heart of God, and feed upon the Word of God, and this Food would be their holy Preservation, and would make their Image clear and light; as the Heart of God, in the Beginning of the second Principle, enlightens the Father, (that is, the first Principle;) and there the divine Power, Paradise, and the Kingdom of Heaven spring up.

(95) When God created the Angels, all of them were created wholly out of this Birth or Geniture of God; their Body was compassed or incorporated out of Nature, therein their Spirit and Light generated themselves, as the Deity generated itself. And as the qualifying or fountain Spirits of God always took their Power and Strength out of or from the Body of Nature, so the Angels also, they took their Power and Strength always out of, or from the Nature of God.

(1) Moreover, with respect to the tenuity and subtilty of light, the Gods extend a light so subtle that corporeal eyes cannot sustain it, but are affected in the same manner as fishes, when they are drawn upward from turbid and thick water into attenuated and diaphanous air. For men who survey divine fire are not able to breathe, through the subtilty of it, but become languid as soon as they perceive it, and are deprived of the use of their connascent spirit. Archangels, also, emit a light which is intolerable to respiration, yet their splendour is not equally pure with that of the Gods, nor similarly overpowering. The presence of angels renders the temperature of the air tolerable, so that theurgists are capable of being united to it. But when dæmons are present, the whole air is not at all affected; nor does the air, which surrounds them, become more attenuated; nor does a light precede them, in which, being previously received and preoccupied by the air, they unfold the form of themselves; nor are they surrounded by a certain splendour, which diffuses its light everywhere. When heroes appear, certain parts of the earth are moved, and sounds are heard around them; but, in short, the air does not become more attenuated, nor incommensurate to theurgists, so as to render them unable to receive it. But when archons are present, an assemblage of many luminous appearances runs round them, difficult to be borne, whether these appearances are mundane or terrestrial. They have not, however, a supermundane tenuity, nor even that of the supreme elements. And to the psychical appearances the air is more allied, and, being suspended from them, receives in itself their circumscription.

(74) “The Angelical King is the Center or Fountain; as Adam’s Soul is the Beginning and Center of all Souls; and as from the Place of the Sun was created and generated the Planetic Wheel or Sphere, wherein each Star is desirous of the Splendor and Power of the Sun, so the Angels are desirous of their Cherubim or Prince; all according to God, and to his Similitude.”

(13) God created Angels out of himself, for this reason, that they might be harder and drier, incorporated or compacted together than the Ideas, Figures, Shapes or Forms, which through the Qualifying or Operating of the Spirits of God in Nature rise up, and also through the Moving of the Spirits vanish or pass away again, that their Light in their Hardness should shine the clearer and brighter, and that the Tone of the Body should sound the clearer and shriller, whereby the Joyfulness should increase the more in God. This was the Cause that God created Angels.

(26) For as the Deity presents itself infinitely in its Rising up, so there are unsearchable Varieties of Colours and Forms among the Angels: I can show thee no right Similitude of it in this World, but in the blossoming Field of Flowers in May, which yet is but a dead and earthly Type. Of the Angelical Joy. Question. [blossoming]

(7) Their numberless faces then, and many feet, manifest, as I think, their property of viewing the most Divine illuminations from many sides, and their conception of the good things of God as ever active and abundantly receptive; and the sixfold arrangement of the wings, of which the Scripture speaks, does not, I think, denote, as seems to some, a sacred number, but that of the highest Essence and Order around God; the first and middle and last of its contemplative and Godlike powers are altogether elevating, free, and supermundane. Hence the most holy wisdom of the Oracles, when reverently describing the formation of the wings, places the wings around their heads, and middle, and feet; suggesting their complete covering with wings, and their manifold faculty of leading to the Really Being.

(44) But the seven Spirits, which are in an Angel, which generate the Light and Understanding, they are bound and united with the whole God, that they should not qualify any other Way, either higher or more vehemently, than God himself; but that there should be one and the same Manner and Way between them both.

(67) Thus also is the Frame and Constitution of the Angelical Kingdom: The Sun signifies the Supremest Throne-Angel, the Cherubim or King, in an Angelical Kingdom: Such a one as Lord Lucifer also was before his Fall: He had his Seat in the Center or Midst of his Kingdom, and reigned by his Power in all his Angels.

(142) Now for such an End has God created the Angels, and they do so too: for their Spirit, which in the Center or Heart goes forth from their Light in the Power of all the seven qualifying or fountain Spirits, that goes forth at their Mouth, as God the Holy Ghost goes forth from the Father and Son, and helps to form, image or frame all in God (that is to say, in the divine Nature) through the Mercurius, Song and Speaking, and Sport or Scene of Joy.

(112) Now the Angels also have such Bodies, but more dry and close compacted or incorporated together, and their Body also is the Kernel, or out of Nature, even the best or fairest Splendor and Brightness of, or out of Nature.

(16) the Angels are not only imaged or framed out of the seventh Nature-Spirit, as the transitory Creatures are, but when the Deity moved itself to the creating of Angels, then in every Circle, wherein each Angel was incorporated or compacted together, there the Deity with its whole Substance and Being was incorporated or compacted together, [* Understand the two eternal Principles, viz. “the Fire and the Light, and yet not the Quality or Source of the Fire, but the Essence of it,”] and became a Body, and yet the Deity continued in its Seat, as before. Understand this well:

(143) For as the Holy Ghost goes forth from the Light, and forms, figures, and images all, and reigns in all, such also is the Power, and gracious, amiable Blessedness of a Cherubim, who is the King and Heart of all his Angels; that is, when his Angels do but behold him, they are all then affected and touched with the Will of their King.

(84) so the holy Angels move, walk, or converse in all the three Kingdoms, one among another, whereby they conceive, or receive their Conceptions, one from the other; that is, from the other's Beauty, comely Form, Friendliness, Courtesy and Virtue, every one receives his highest Joy, and yet each keeps his natural Seat or Place, in which he is become a Creature, for his own Propriety.

(4) In a similar manner, likewise, we must determine concerning the light of these powers. For the images of the Gods, indeed, are replete with a fulgid light. Those of archangels are full of supernatural light. Those of angels are luminous; but dæmons present themselves to the view with a turbid fire. The light of heroes is mingled with many things. And, with respect to archons, the light of those that have the government of the world is more pure; but of those that preside over matter, exhibits itself mingled from things of a dissimilar and contrary nature. And the light of souls manifests itself to be partibly filled with many of the mixtures which exist in generation.

(120) After that, he created the Princely-angels, according to the seven qualifying or fountain Spirits, answerable to their Quality, viz. GABRIEL, as an Angel Prince of the Tone, Sound, or of swift or speedy Messages; as also RAPHAEL, and others beside in the Kingdom of MICHAEL.

(5) These the Fiat created to a Similitude and Image of God, and overshadowed the same in the Fiat with the overflowing Virtue of God; and the Will of God i set itself [right] against the Image and Similitude, and they now which received the Will, they became Angels, for they set their Imagination, in the Will, in the Heart of God, and they did eat of the Verbum Domini [of the Word of the Lord;] but they that set their Imagination in the dark Mind, as Lucifer [did, that he might] fly out above the Deity and Meekness in the Might of the Fire in the Flash, in the sharp Might of God, and be Lord alone, they became Devils, and they have that Name from their being thrust [or driven] out of the Light; for they were in the Light when the Fiat created them, for the Fiat which created them stood in the Light.