#saraphim

[pulpsandcomics2]

paper doll

[obaewankenope]

on the ranking of angels

the whole ranking of angels kinda comes from one guy: pseudo-dionysius the areopagite from 5th century ad, this dude gave us the basis for ranking angels in groups, levels, grades, choirs etc

we don’t really know who tf he was since he literally just made himself out to be some psuedo version of dionysius (because we obviously needed another dionysius in human history) and i’d love to time travel and kick him in the nads if i could.

anyway. so yeah. ranking angels. 

my upbringing is catholic and i went to communion and read that godsawful bible and blah-blah and so on so like, a lot of my own understanding stems from that and then the deranged Research Frenzies i’m known for. this means i’ve done learning about this topic and generally, i feel like there’s a bit of a... misunderstanding in the good omens fandom as to where aziraphale, crowley (as raphael or not), gabriel and co seem to land in terms of ranks and power levels.

cherubim, seraphim, archangels... fancy words we sort of know but don’t really Get. time to get em.

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F I R S T  S P H E R E

saraph/seraph-im:

according to tradition, these boys are top dog in christian theology but fifth in jewish. my memory serves to remind me that archangels are also seraphim and that the three main types of angels are cherubs, saraph, and thrones with the other spheres being more titles for them to have on top of that. i’ve read online where the archangels michael, gabriel, and samael/lucifer are either saraph or cherubs but this is... well, thanks to pseudo-dionysius, not exactly easy to frickin’ parse. the book of isaiah describes saraphs as having six wings (two on the back, two hiding the face, two at the feet/genitals).

this means that gabriel, lucifer, michael, uriel and even sandalphon (dude why no ‘iel’ on the end, it’s sad) are higher ranks than aziraphale in terms of sheer power even if they may be outranked by aziraphale regarding humans proper. make sense? nope? not surprising.

cherub-im:

cherubs attend to god and are also kinda shoved into the joyous role of guarding eden. in jewish theology, cherubs are either second or third lowest ranked (eighth or ninth) compared to the saraphs who are middle of the way. it’s from cherubs -- described in the book of ezekiel -- that we have that many faced, multi-winged conception of angels btw. usually a lion, ox, human, and eagle to represent all types of animals (where’s the snake you say? crowley nicked it... probably). thanks to some later western christian traditions we kinda see cherubs as plump, little, babies with those bows with love-heart arrows (probably crowley’s doing to piss aziraphale off). cherubs do have two pairs of wings (four in total) compared to the six that saraphs have, making them different at least there.

so aziraphale being a cherub makes sense. but he’s gonna be second-tier to saraphs like gab’ and co thus he does still obey gabriel as and when required--only in regards to humans can aziraphale kinda disobey because principality trumps archangel with humans but again, gabriel has more pull in heaven and can still punish him (plus gabriel is an asshole in the show and is Just Like That)

thrones aka ophanim:

these fellas are kinda just guards of gods throne. they’re called thrones or galgalim (refers to ezekiel’s wheels during his vision of the chariot). a dead sea scroll calls them angels and puts them below saraphs and cherubs while the book of enoch says they never sleep (like saraphs and cherubs) and guard god’s throne. i can’t really find any names ascribed to this group but are associated with meting out divine justice and maintain cosmic harmony.

i can only imagine how Done they are with crowley over him stopping time...

.

i’m just gonna straight up skip the second sphere because, well; dominions organise lower angels and keep things ticking over; virtues are the sign post makers of divine shit; and powers/authorities just watch a lot and keep things running along on a cosmic scale. so, administrators. literally. poor civil servants of heaven. they probably don’t even get a decent pay.

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the third sphere is what we’re interested in anyway, because of the whole “principalities outrank archangels tho” stuff. so here we are

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T H I R D  S P H E R E

principalities:

principalities/rulers are guides and protectors of nations and institutions. so you’d have a principality guarding the catholic church, one covering the orthodox church, another who deals with maybe protecting italy and so on. aziraphale is the principality of the eastern gate of eden, that- that’s a pretty big thing. principalities wear crowns and carry sceptres, and carry out the orders given to them by upper sphere angels.

in canon, aziraphale is a principality, but i can’t recall him being called anything. i’m not sure if it’s fandom deciding here’s a cherub or not, ignoring the spheres or not, or whatever, but he doesn’t Really rank above gabriel. gaiman himself made a note of the difference between Archangels and archangels - the capital A makes the difference. so see seraphs as Archangels and third sphere archangels as the generic boys. 

in my mind, gabriel and michael -- as pretty much the only really named archangels in christian theology -- are the Archangels whilst sandalphon and uriel are archangels. so aziraphale can ignore two of the four but not michael or gabriel outright (we’re not discussing the disobedience by avoidance tactic he employs a lot). expanding the Archangel category to include maybe Raphael (angel of healing) and Azrael (angel of death) works too, but generally, aziraphale can’t disobey direct orders from them because they are his bosses. unless -- and this is the thing -- it comes to something involving His Specific Principality. but being the principality of eden is... well, eden doesn’t exist anymore. some major mental gymnastics would be required for aziraphale to decide Earth Is Eden Thus Earth Is My Principality SUCK IT GABRIEL and ignore heaven... actually... this might well explain a fair amount of his behaviour lmao. someone else can play with That tho. 

archangels:

funnily enough, archangels aren’t mentioned in the bible more than two or three times. in christianity, gabriel is called an archangel but there’s actually nothing in the bible to support that. michael is called an archangel in the new testament tho. the word means “chief angel” coming from greek archein for first in rank or power -- hence why it’s a bit odd for archangels to be ranked below others. archangel is only ever a singular term and used Only for michael btw. 

but in the book of tobit/tobias, we get an archangel raphael, an archangel uriel is also brought up in anglican and russian orthodox religions. raphael isn’t really considered a Canon angel outside of roman catholicism (my lot btw), eastern orthodox and anglicans, whilst uriel isn’t mentioned in the western christian bible at all. 

raphael gives us the idea of seven archangels btw - from the book of tobit where he says he’s “one of the seven who stand before the Lord”. 

in the books of enoch and revelations, we’re told that there are seven spirits of god that stand before the throne and some interpretations have the seven archangels as those seven spirits.

depending on the theological tradition, the names of the archangels vary. the ones i know of as roman catholic are gabriel, michael, and raphael (lucifer doesn’t count bc he’s fallen obvs), whereas eastern orthodox has seven and even an extra one depending: michael, gabriel, raphael, uriel, selaphiel/salathiel, jegudiel/jehudiel, barachiel, and jerahmeel/jeremiel.

the names vary depending on what faith you are but, generally, the three most common are gabriel, michael, and raphael - who are described as seraphim or cherubim and archangels as like their job title.

angels:

regular dudes. i cba even going Into This One Okay?

.

so all of this means that aziraphale is second to gabriel no matter what unless he does some awesome mental gymnastics and claims earth as eden and argues it’s his job to oversee it as fit (just imagine the vein in gabriel’s head popping from That Conversation).

aziraphale is definitely powerful, he’d have to be as a principality of eden - it’s kind of a Big Deal to be in charge of eden, even if you might share the job with three others - but he’s not quite as powerful as an archangel who is basically the second in command of heaven after god.

unless, as i’ve said, aziraphale draws on his position as a principality and uses That over gabriel who seems very set on his “i’m the fucking archangel gabriel” spiel lmao.

so yeah. this is just A Thing for me. idk if any one else feels this way about it all or not, but you can ignore me about all of this. i’m not an Authority on it and honestly, this is more to make sense of it all For Myself than to Tell Ya’ll How It Ought To Be.

[k1theoriginalstormblog-blog]

This is based on Castiel's true form via. SPN - Trueform Castiel by airagorncharda on @DeviantArt

It is also the inspiration for my castiel mpreg pic. Both images were edited by basic photo editing software. I'm quite proud how they turned out.

[drjacquescoulardeau]

LOVE IS A REAL ADORABLE CURSE AN UNTELLABLE STORY A dramatic Confession THE NINETEEN STATIONS OF SARAPHIC LOVE

 James Crittle, a famous pilot of the French Air Force, later turned university professor, on February 18, 2015, was found dead in full uniform Rue Montmartre in Paris. He had used some cyanide to put an end to his life. The French Air Force took over his funeral in Bordeaux, but Joseph and Magdalena Seth, two young people who had been his friends up to three years before when James Crittle stepped out of their life without any explanation, hearing the news on the radio decided to claim his body since he had no known direct relatives.

They are entrusted then with an important envelope addressed to them and that contains the manuscript of this “Untellable Story” and my name and contact. I had been James Crittle’s friend some fifty years earlier when I was going to the university and met him then. He had obviously kept track of me over these years.

I here try to give you his confession, since he calls it a confession, about his first twenty years in this life and I just try to put, as far as I can, this text into perspective with an introduction. Joseph and Magdalena Seth added a short conclusion. Most of the pictures and illustrations were in the initial envelope. We decided to use them, with some prudence though because some of the people on these pictures are totally unknown to us and they were not identified.

We also retained some documents from East Germany and the USA and his military papers, considering they had nothing to do with this “Untellable Story.”

 Jacques COULARDEAU

Olliergues, France

March 14, 2015

 Format: Format Kindle, 201 pages

Editeur: Éditions La Dondaine, 13 mars 2015

Langue : Anglais

ASIN: B00UP4CX88

$ 8.50 - € 7,84

[k1theoriginalstormblog-blog]

Fixed my drawing tablet and cleaned my image and like both. Which one do you like?

[k1theoriginalstormblog-blog]

SPN - Trueform Castiel by airagorncharda on @DeviantArt

https://www.deviantart.com/airagorncharda/art/SPN-Trueform-Castiel-360845557

Tried doing this earlier but please make this canon!

[ao3feed-destiel]

The Pages In-Between

read it on the AO3 at http://ift.tt/1YIoOtR

by Saraphim

Dean's life is pretty great. Sammy's at a fancy college with an amazing girlfriend who's way out of his league. Bobby's auto shop is thriving. He lives in an actual, totally stationary house that's always packed with the people he cares most about. So there's no reason for him to ever reflect on his less-than-stellar past.

But a pair of familiar blue eyes staring intently out of a skin mag abruptly drags forth forgotten memories of a rare, happy time in his youth.

And Dean is suddenly inspired to reach out to an old friend.

...Even if that makes him a little bit of a creeper.

  Fic inspired by the J. Geils Band song "Centerfold."

Words: 3433, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Fandoms: Supernatural

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Categories: M/M

Characters: Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, Castiel, Castiel (Supernatural), Jessica Moore, Charlie Bradbury, Ash (Supernatural), Ed Zeddmore, Harry Spangler, Chuck Shurley, Andy Gallagher, Kevin Tran, Garth Fitzgerald IV, Bobby Singer, Jo Harvelle, Victor Henriksen, Gabriel (Supernatural), Ezekiel | Gadreel, Samandriel (Supernatural), Meg Masters, Benny Lafitte, Ellen Harvelle, Jody Mills, Donna Hanscum, Rufus Turner, John Winchester

Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Jessica Moore/Sam Winchester, Harry Spangler & Ed Zeddmore, Ellen Harvelle/Bobby Singer

Additional Tags: Openly Bisexual Dean, Panty Kink, Tattooed Castiel, High School, Alternate Universe - Human, Top Castiel/Bottom Dean Winchester, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Dead John Winchester, Slow Burn, Model Castiel, Mechanic Dean, Librarian Castiel, Fluff and Smut, Nerd Castiel, Flustered Dean, Angel is the Centerfold, Photography Kink, Dirty Talk, Castiel is a Sex God, Charlie Ships It, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Nipple Piercings, Eventual Smut, Crossdressing Kink, Unbeta'd, Destiel - Freeform

read it on the AO3 at http://ift.tt/1YIoOtR