The Seraphim

The angelic hierarchies are divided into nine classes of angels, each distinct in nature and task. Each class of angel is an emanation of God, with the first angels of creation being called the Seraphim.The word Seraph means fire, and these angels are often depicted with red wings, portraying their role in conveying the primordial flame of life. They are the burning ones, or the fire spirits of the hierarchies, who purify the world by radiating forward the love of the Father, which is experienced by humanity as “spiritual fire.” In esoteric imagery, the Father’s love manifests as pure spiritual fire.

The emergence of the Seraphim can be observed cosmologically as the beginning of the creation of our cosmos. The moment the Seraphim emerged from the Father is the moment our cosmos began. In this sense, as the first beings to exist, the Seraphim are the only angels in the hierarchy to interact directly with the Godhead. From the Seraphim emerge the entire spiritual hierarchy and all life as we know it. All angels and human beings can trace their origin back to the Seraphim as the primal emanation. All creation follows from their original fire.

Rudolf Steiner described the Seraphim in his lecture series titled 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘱𝘪𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭 𝘏𝘪𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘳𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘦𝘴.

“The beings who, as it were, are nearest to God Himself, who, as it is beautifully expressed in Christian Western Esotericism, ‘bask in the light of God’s countenance,’ are the Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones.”
𝘎𝘈 𝟣𝟣𝟢

In the Bible, the Seraphim are described in Isaiah’s vision as surrounding the throne of God, calling out to one another and exclaiming, “Holy, holy, holy.”

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory”
𝘐𝘴𝘢𝘪𝘢𝘩 𝟨:𝟥

They are also envisioned as having six wings, two covering their faces, two covering their feet, and another pair used for flight. The obscuring of their bodies with their wings may symbolize the heavy veils that separate us from them. The Seraphim are such exalted spiritual beings that we cannot fully perceive them. In this way, the first hierarchy is the most difficult for us to understand.

“Above Him stood seraphim, each having six wings: with two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying.”
𝘐𝘴𝘢𝘪𝘢𝘩 𝟨:𝟤

Rudolf Steiner also describes the Seraphim as the Spirits of Love and reveals that they do not act out of their own interests, but are executors of divine will. They work in tandem with the other two beings of their triad, the Cherubim and the Thrones. The Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones thus form the first triad, or the first hierarchy.

Perhaps the most fascinating mystery of the first hierarchy is that they are the embodiments of a prior solar system in which our current sun and solar system emerged out of. This means that our solar system emerged, not chaotically or coincidentally, but rather as a later incarnation of prior solar systems. Or, that our solar system is a continuation of an earlier system that already reached its completion long before humanity emerged. Our sun and its planets arose out of the primordial ‘forge’ of their parent solar system and the mysteries of these prior systems are held within the first two hierarchies. Our relationship to them reveals not only our creation, but the creation of our entire cosmos.

“…at the beginning of our solar system, the Seraphim received the supreme plans of the Divine Trinity which contain how our solar system is to evolve through Saturn, Sun, Moon, Earth, Jupiter, Venus and Vulcan. Seraphim is a name which has always been interpreted by all those who have understood it correctly in the sense of the old Hebrew esotericism itself, in such a way that the Seraphim have the task of receiving the highest ideas, the goals of a world system from the Trinity. The Cherubim, the next lower level of the Hierarchy, have the task of expanding in wisdom the goals, the ideas, which are received from the highest Gods. The cherubim are therefore spirits of the highest wisdom, who know how to translate into practicable plans that which is indicated to them by the Seraphim. And the thrones in turn, the third degree of the Hierarchy from above, have the task now, very figuratively speaking of course, of laying hands, so that what has been thought out in wisdom, so that these lofty world-thoughts which the Seraphim receive from the gods, which the Cherubim have thought through, may be put into reality.”
GA 110

This revelation is key in esoteric Christianity, in which the cosmos is understood quite differently than in modern science. In esoteric Christianity, the cosmos is first seen as a spiritual being and as the result of a series of emanations or developments. Each development recapitulates the last and brings forth something new. These prior emanations are classically observed in the fixed stars, or the zodiac.