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. The word cherub is sometimes used informally as a general term for all forms of angel.

What Are Cherubs?

What or who are the cherubs? 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 the way out of the garden in Michelangelo's In the book of Ezekiel cherubs are said to bear the chariot of God.

The Biblical description of a cherub is very different from the one that most of us 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. He has also been identified with the fallen angel Satan.

Today the best known image 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. This is a frequent form for figurines and statues you can buy today, both for indoor decoration and outdoors in the garden. See the cherub store