The shining ones, through whom the impossible is made to happen.
The Choir
At the heart of the Second Sphere stand the Virtues, the “shining ones,” the angels of miracles and grace. Their name comes from the Latin virtus and the Greek dynamis, words meaning strength, power, or mighty deed — the same dynameis that Paul ranks among the celestial authorities and that the Gospels use for the “mighty works” of Christ. It is through the Virtues that the extraordinary interventions of heaven — the healings, the signs, the sudden breaks in the ordinary course of nature — are channeled into the world. They govern the movements of the heavens and the elements, the tradition holds, bestowing the courage and the grace by which saints endure and the faithful are strengthened.
If the Dominions above them decide what shall be done, it is the Virtues who supply the luminous energy to accomplish it, radiating a divine light that lends power to those below and works wonders in the created order. The medieval hierarchs saw the Virtues as the source of the miraculous precisely because they hold the middle place in the middle sphere — near enough to the throne to draw upon its power, near enough to the world to release it there. They are associated with the great turning-points of sacred history, and some traditions place two of them at the Ascension, the “two men in white apparel” of Acts who stand beside the disciples to interpret the mystery of the vanished Lord.
Their gift is grace in motion: not the static order of the Dominions nor the martial vigilance of the Powers, but the shining, active infusion of strength by which grace overcomes the resistance of a fallen world. Where they pass, the ordinary is quietly overruled, and heaven’s power is made manifest as light.
Attributes
| Attribute | Value |
|---|---|
| Sphere | Second (governors of creation) |
| Rank in hierarchy | 5 |
| Role | Workers of miracles and channels of grace |
| Governs | Miracles, grace, courage, the movements of nature |
In the Tradition
Pseudo-Dionysius describes the Virtues as a certain masculine and unshaken strength, an unwearied power flowing into all godlike energies, refusing to fall short of the divine through any weakness and rising unfailingly toward the source of all might. Gregory the Great connected them by name with signs and wonders, teaching that through this choir the miracles most often shown to the world are commonly wrought. Aquinas placed them at the center of the second triad as the executors of the divine works decreed above, the power by which what the Dominions ordain is actually carried into effect, and linked them especially to the government of the heavens and the general causes by which the whole of creation is moved. Because their name is the very word for courage, later devotion made them the strengtheners of the martyrs and the confessors — the angels who steady a trembling soul at the moment it must do the impossible. In art they carry lilies, or the emblems of the Passion, or a censer of light, and are shown pouring radiance downward into a darkened world.
Related
Choirs — Seraphim · Cherubim · Thrones · Dominions · Powers · Principalities · Archangels · Angels Archangels — Michael · Gabriel · Raphael · Uriel · Haniel · Sandalphon · Metatron