Cherubs

In the Christian religion the cherubs - or cherubim - are divine spirits that serve God closely. As such they became known as "angelic spirits" and were placed with the seraphim in the 1st and highest triad of the hierarchy of angels. Some people use the word cherub as a general term for all forms of angel.

Black Cherubs
Wilde, Ian
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In the Bible, cherubs are assigned to guard the Tree of Life and prevent Adam and Eve from returning to the garden of Eden after their expulsion. A cherub uses his sword to point tthe way out of the garden in Michelangelo's The Fall and the Expulsion from Paradise in the Sistine chapel.

In the book of Ezekiel cherubs are said to bear the chariot of God.

The Biblical description of a cherub is different from the one that many people have today. Usually it involved an angel with some form of animal features. For example in the Book of Ezekiel (x:14) it says of the cherubim:

"And each one had four faces. The first face was the face of a cherub, the second face was the face of a man, the third the face of a lion, and the fourth the face of an eagle."

According to Ezekiel, the "King of Tyre" was once a cherub. Some people identify the King of Tyre with the fallen angel Satan.

The image that most people today have of cherubs is the one most frequently found in art: a cherub as a cute, puffy faced infant angel with small wings. The word "cherubic" is often used to describe any cute, friendly large-faced person, especially a child.

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