St Gregory the Great and the ideas behind the Nine Orders window
The source for the window’s depiction of the Nine Orders of Angels is Sermon 34 of Pope Gregory the Great, Sections 7 – 10. This sermon was preached in Rome on an autumn Ember Day, 29 September 591. It is mainly a discussion of the parables of the lost sheep and the lost silver coin, but after a while Gregory launches into a long digression on angels which has nothing whatever to do with the parables.
Here are the relevant words from the sermon. He deals with the scriptural passages which, he says, show that there exist nine Orders, and then he discusses them one by one (in reverse order – that is, starting with the lowest, ‘Angels’, and working up to the highest, ‘Seraphim’).
The Nine Orders, from lowest to highest
Novem vero angelorum ordines diximus, quia videlicet esse, testante sacro eloquio, scimus angelos, archangelos, virtutes, potestates, principatus, dominationes, thronos, cherubim, atque seraphim.
We said that there are nine orders of angels. We know from the testimony of Holy Scripture that there are Angels, Archangels, Virtues, Powers, Principalities, Dominations, Thrones, Cherubim and Seraphim.
1, 2 Angels, Archangels
Græca etenim lingua angeli nuntii, archangeli vero summi nuntii, vocantur... Hi autem qui minima nuntiant, angeli, qui vero summa annuntiant, archangeli, vocantur.
The word Angel means in Greek "Announcer", and Archangel "Great Announcer". By Angels we mean those who announce things of lesser importance, by Archangels those who announce the highest things.
3 Virtues
Virtutes etenim vocantur illi nimirum spiritus, per quos signa et miracula frequentius fiunt.
Virtues are those spirits by whom signs and miracles are very often performed.
4 Powers
Potestates etiam vocantur hi qui hoc potentius cæteris in suo ordine perceperunt, ut eorum ditioni virtutes adversæ subjectæ sint, quorum potestate refrenantur, ne corda hominum tantum tentare prævaleant quantum volunt.
Powers are those who have received, in their order, more power than others to submit the adverse forces to their authority, limit their power and thus prevent them from tempting the hearts of men as much as they want.
5 Principalities
Principatus etiam vocantur qui ipsis quoque bonis angelorum spiritibus præsunt, qui subjectis aliis dum quæque sunt agenda disponunt, eis ad explenda divina ministeria principantur.
Principalities are those who command the other good angelic spirits themselves, who distribute to those who are subject to them the orders of all that they must do, and who direct them in the accomplishment of the divine missions.
6 Dominations
Dominationes autem vocantur qui etiam potestates principatum dissimilitudine alta transcendunt. Nam principari est inter reliquos priorem existere, dominari vero est etiam subjectos quosque possidere. Ea ergo angelorum agmina, quæ mira potentia præeminent, pro eo quod eis cætera ad obediendum subjecta sunt, dominationes vocantur.
Dominations are spirits that far exceed the power of the Principalities. For to have the principality consists in holding the first rank in a group, while to dominate is also to have each other under his authority. Dominations, therefore, are called the angels' troops, who, by their admirable power, have precedence over others, because they are bound to submit to them by obedience.
7 Thrones
Throni quoque illa agmina sunt vocata, quibus ad exercendum judicium semper Deus omnipotens præsidet. Quia enim thronos Latino eloquio sedes dicimus, throni Dei dicti sunt hi qui tanta divinitatis gratia replentur, ut in eis Dominus sedeat, et per eos sua judicia decernat.
Thrones are those ranks where almighty God always presides to exercise justice. Since the Greek word throne means "seat" in Latin, Thrones of God are spirits who are filled with divine grace with such abundance that the Lord sits in them and uses them to pronounce his judgments.
8 Cherubim
Cherubim quoque plenitudo scientiæ dicitur. Et sublimiora illa agmina idcirco cherubim vocata sunt, quia tanto perfectiori scientia plena sunt, quanto claritatem Dei vicinius contemplantur; ut, secundum creaturæ modum, eo plene omnia sciant, quo visione conditoris sui per meritum dignitatis appropinquant.
Cherub means "fullness of knowledge". These higher ranks are called Cherubim, for they are spirits so much the more perfectly filled with the knowledge of God, that they contemplate his glory more closely; to their measure of creatures, they have a knowledge of all things all the more complete as they come closer to the vision of their Creator, by virtue of their dignity.
(Note that cherubim and seraphim are the Hebrew plurals of cherub and seraph.)
9. Seraphim
Seraphim etiam vocantur illa spirituum sanctorum agmina quæ ex singulari propinquitate conditoris sui incomparabili ardent amore. Seraphim namque ardentes vel incendentes vocantur. Quæ, quia ita Deo conjuncta sunt ut inter hæc et Deum nulli alii spiritus intersint, tanto magis ardent, quanto hunc vicinius vident. Quorum profecto flamma amor est, quia quo subtilius claritatem divinitatis ejus aspiciunt, eo validius in ejus amore flammescunt.
Finally, Seraphim are the ranks of holy spirits who burn with incomparable love because of their unique proximity to their Creator. Seraphim means "burning” or “on fire". They are so united to God that no other spirit stands between them and him. They are so much more afire that they see him more closely. The flame with which they burn is assuredly that of love, for their love is all the more ardent as they contemplate the glory of divinity with a more penetrating look.
The Latin sermon is among the works of Gregory the Great printed in Vol. 77 of Migne’s Patrologia Latina and can be viewed on various websites. The website used here is the University of Zurich’s digitised Patrologia Latina https://www.mlat.uzh.ch/browserpath=38/1165/3051/8053&text=8053:37 viewed on 27 January 2023.
The inscriptions in the window
Eric Gee’s definitive 1969 article ‘The Painted Glass of All Saints Church, North Street, York’, pp. 170-174, describes the process of restoring the Nine Orders of Angels window in 1968 in line with the then recently-rediscovered sketch of it made by the antiquarian Henry Johnston in 1670 and now in the Bodleian Library:
Johnston indicated many of the colours in the window by abbreviations, using heraldic colours (thus g = gules, red). He also wrote down the left-hand side of his sketch the inscriptions as far as he could read them:
As deciphered by Gee these read as follows (the three words in bold were evidently those Johnston could not read, and so he reproduced as nearly as he could the exact form of the letters he saw):
1 Seraphyn amore ardentes et d.....ulantes
2 .......shentes et recte disponentes
3 ........sub......tes
4 Dominaciones humiliter dominantes benigne castigantes
5 Principatus bonis succurrentes pro inferioribus ordinantes
6 Potestates ...dientes malignos succumbentes
7 Vir.... ..cula fa.... ita revelantes
8 Archangeli morientes omnes deo ...tes
9 Angeli mestos consolantes divina nunciantes
By the time of the 1966 reconstruction only the following parts of these inscriptions were visible, pieced together from scattered locations in the pre-1965 Nine Orders and St James windows:
1 ...phyn amore ...amb
2 ....shentes [?] et recte disponentes
3 [nothing surviving]
4 Dominaciones humiliter dominantes ...enigne castiga...
5 ...bonis succurrentes p... inferioribus ordinantes ...ro
6 [indecipherable]
7 ...utes ... revelantes
8 ... mori… ..nes ..........deo 9 ... mestos consolantes ...ina ...
Using Johnston as a guide, Gee puts forward the following as reconstructed inscriptions; we put numbers 2 and 3 aside for the moment:
1 Seraphyn amore ardentes et deum circumambulantes
Seraphim, burning with love, moving around God
4 Dominaciones humiliter dominantes benigne castigantes
Dominations, humble in rule, kindly in punishing
5 Principatus bonis succurrentes pro inferioribus ordinantes
Principalities, bringing succour to the good, governing for the lowly
6 Potestates e celo egredientes malignos succumbentes
Powers, coming forth from heaven, bringing down the evil
7 Virtutes miracula facientes Deum ita revelantes
Virtues, working miracles and so revealing God
8 Archangeli morientes omnes deo conducentes
Archangels, leading to God all doomed to die
9 Angeli mestos consolantes divina nunciantes
Angels, comforting the afflicted, bringing messages from God
Thus Gee says (1) that for Panels 4, 5 and 9 the inscriptions survived unaltered to 1670 and Johnston’s wordings can be accepted as definitive; and (2) that for Panels 1, 6, 7 and 8 only small portions were lost by Johnston’s day and the full inscriptions can be restored without difficulty.
Note that for Panel 9 Gee writes annunciantes for the last word; but Johnston’s sketch of the word is very accurate though he could not read it, and it clearly shows the first three letters to be nun. There is no macron over them to mark an abbreviation, as there would be if the glass painter had abbreviated annunciantes, and the shorter word agrees closely with Gregory the Great’s text.
The only difficult Panels are therefore 2 and 3, ‘Cherubim’ and ‘Thrones’. For these we can do, as Gee did not, and consult Gregory’s sermon.
Gee refers not to Gregory but to the more commonly used medieval source of ideas on the orders of angels, the anonymous work of Pseudo-Dionysius. His De Celesti Hierarchia (‘On the Celestial Hierarchy’) claims to be by the Dionysius converted by St Paul in the New Testament, but is in fact of the 5 th century and stands in the not-quite-Christian neo-platonist tradition. Pseudo-Dionysius places the nine orders of angels in three hierarchies that overlap with but are not the same as Gregory’s:
Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones
Dominations, Virtues, Powers
Principalities, Archangels, Angels
That is, compared with Gregory’s ordering, Virtues and Principalities have changed places. Does this matter? Not really, except for pointing us towards Gregory rather than Pseudo- Dionysius as the source of the window’s ideas.
Turning, therefore, to Gregory, we find in the paragraph on Cherubim quoted above and repeated here:
Cherubim quoque plenitudo scientiæ dicitur. Et sublimiora illa agmina idcirco cherubim vocata sunt, quia tanto perfectiori scientia plena sunt, quanto claritatem Dei vicinius contemplantur; ut, secundum creaturæ modum, eo plene omnia sciant, quo visione conditoris sui per meritum dignitatis appropinquant.
Cherub means "fullness of knowledge". These higher ranks are called Cherubim, for they are spirits so much the more perfectly filled with the knowledge of God, that they contemplate his glory more closely; to their measure of creatures, they have a knowledge of all things all the more complete as they come closer to the vision of their Creator, by virtue of their dignity.
The emphasis on ‘knowledge’ and ‘knowing’ make sense of the mysterious word Johnston and Gee transcribe as shentes or skentes, which cannot be a medieval Latin word or part of a word. It is scientes, ‘knowing’. Using the underlined phrase in Gregory, our Panel 2 inscription can most plausibly be held to have originally read
Cherubim omnia scientes et recte disponentes
Cherubim, knowing and rightly disposing all things.
Panel 3 concerns ‘Thrones’. Of its inscription nothing now survives, and Johnston records only two disconnected sets of three letters, sub and tes. Gee posits subjugantes for these, without saying why. Gregory writes:
Throni quoque illa agmina sunt vocata, quibus ad exercendum judicium semper Deus omnipotens praesidet. Quia enim thronos Latino eloquio sedes dicimus, throni Dei dicti sunt hi qui tanta divinitatis gratia replentur, ut in eis Dominus sedeat, et per eos sua judicia decernat.
Thrones are those ranks where almighty God always presides to exercise justice. Since the Greek word throne means "seat" in Latin, Thrones of God are spirits who are filled with divine grace with such abundance that the Lord sits in them and uses them to pronounce his judgments.
Noting the emphasis on ‘judgment’ and ‘judging’, taking up Gee’s suggestion of subjugantes for the word partly surviving in 1670, and maintaining the other eight Panels’ pattern of parallel participles ...tes ...tes, we conjecture the following for the Panel 3 inscription:
Throni omnia iudicantes dei iudicio subiugantes.
Thrones, judging all things in subjection to the judgment of God.
Hence the best guess of the original nine inscriptions in their entirety is as follows:
The colour coding is as follows:
Letters in black are all that now survive of the medieval painted words. The red words were still visible in 1670 and Johnston wrote them down along with the black ones. The words in blue are a plausible reconstruction. In most cases the underlined word or part of word, naming that ‘Order’, was placed there in the 2023 restoration—only ‘Dominaciones’ and parts of ‘Seraphyn’ and ‘Archangeli’ are original.
It is interesting to note that the well-known 1906 hymn by Athelstan Riley, ‘Ye watchers and ye holy ones’ (English Hymnal 519) uses the same order as St Gregory in its first verse:
Ye watchers and ye holy ones,
Bright Seraphs, Cherubim and Thrones,
Raise the glad strain, Alleluya!
Cry out Dominions, Princedoms, Powers,
Virtues, Archangels, Angels’ choirs,
Alleluya!
Another medieval witness to the different roles of the Nine Orders
The old Coventry Cathedral, destroyed by bombing in 1940 during the Second World War, had medieval words about the nine orders of angels painted on a roof beam above the rood screen. According to Mary Dormer Harris, The Story of Coventry (London 1911, p.329) they were part of a Latin hymn, and read
Archangeli presunt ciuitatibus
Archangels have authority over nations
Potestates presunt demonibus
Powers have authority over demons
Dominaciones presunt spiritibus angelicis
Dominations have authority over angelic spirits
Cherubyn habent omnem scienciam
Cherubim possess all knowledge
Principalitates presunt bonis hominibus
Principalities have authority over good men
Virtutes faciunt mirabilia
Virtues perform wonders
Seraphyn ardent in amore dei
Seraphim are on fire with the love of God
Troni eorum est judicare
Thrones – their role is to judge
Angeli sunt nuncii domini
Angels are the messengers of the Lord
It is noteworthy how at Coventry the role of Thrones is judging and the nature of Cherubim is to have all knowledge—both of which are the main features of the conjectured reconstructions of the Panel 2 and 3 inscriptions above. It is also noteworthy that the word nuncii is used for Angels, echoed in the fact that Panel 9’s last word is nunciantes not Gee’s conjectured annunciantes. And there are other verbal echoes with our inscriptions, notably with Principalities, Virtues and Seraphim.
Why not replace the missing words and other details in the window?
The 1966 restoration of the window by the York Minster Glaziers (as they were then called) was an amazing tour de force. The unrestored window had to be dismantled and decisions made as to (a) which of the thousands of pieces of glass belonged to this window, (b) if they did, which panel they belonged in, and (c) which pieces were irretrievably lost. Johnston’s sketch of 1670, though it is remarkably accurate, is not much help down at the level of individual pieces of glass. (Imagine trying to reassemble a digital photograph from the individual pixels.) The adjacent St James window appears to have suffered catastrophe at the same time, for pieces from both windows were found scrambled together.
The 1966 restorers left many pieces of glass blank (clear), signifying that they could not be recovered from the pre-1965 state of the window. These included many of the faces, parts of the angels’ wings, and large parts of the inscriptions over each of the nine panels.
The 2022-3 restoration of this window examined the possibility of restoring the inscriptions in full, since Henry Johnston’s sketch enables a great many of the gaps to be filled in. Eventually it was decided against this, for two reasons.
One is that to do so would be to falsify the historical record – for although there is reasonable certainty over most of the words, the certainty is not complete, and the gaps are what the present day has inherited from the past. By way of a compromise the 2022-23 restoration completed (or added) the first word of each inscription, so that each ‘Order’ was fully named.
The second reason is practical – they would not fit! The south wall, in which this window is situated, was entirely rebuilt in the 1860s. At that time the glass was in its pre-1966 state of chaos, in which not only did nobody know what the window depicted, but they also did not know exactly how wide each of the three lights was. When the restorers of 2022-3 tried to make a preliminary sketch of the completed inscriptions, they found that consistently the lights needed to be an inch or two wider to fit all the words in. It is possible to see this by comparing details of Henry Johnston’s sketch closely with the restored window – in several panels the figures at the right-hand edge are slightly compressed compared to his sketch, showing that the panel was originally a little wider.
In a similar vein, replacing the details of faces and clothing would have entailed so much new work that the end result would have been virtually a new window rather than a restoration. The restoration of 2022-23 decided in the end to indicate by shadowing some of the faces, and to paint the feathers on those parts of the angels’ wings that were blank – thus making it clearer that the wings folded over the heads of the angels in the top two row are wings and not horns!
How many pairs of wings does an angel have?
They have two pairs each in the top two rows, a second pair being folded above the angels’ heads. It seems likely, however, that originally there were three pairs on each angel in the top row or ‘hierarchy’, two on each in the second row, and one on each in the third. The idea stems from the Old Testament prophecies of Isaiah (6.1-3 NRSV):
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. And one called to another and said:
‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory.’
This is clearly the origin of the three pairs of wings of the Seraphim. From the fact that the All Saints window shows wings over the face in the upper six ‘choirs’ of angels, it seems clear that there should be three pairs of wings right across the top row. Inspection of the third panel, ‘Thrones’, on page 31 of the Guidebook seems to show clearly the third pair folded down behind the angel’s feet. They are present in Johnston’s sketch too. No such wings are visible in the case of Seraphim and Cherubim, and it is a compelling conjecture that these have been simply lost over the centuries and were not replaced in the 1966 restoration.
It then makes sense that the middle ‘hierarchy’, the ‘choirs’ of Dominations, Principalities and Powers, should have each two pairs, as indeed they have in the restored window. And the lowest ‘hierarchy’, Virtues, Archangels and Angels, have indeed one pair each.
This page supplements the corresponding page in the Church Guidebook, available in the church or here on the website.