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**''Liquids''
**''Gases''
The idea of there being ten initial Angelic hosts is taken from Judaism, this number possessing a very deep significance in Jewish mysticism, being the numeric value of the first letter of the [[Tetragrammaton]], and symbolizing the [[Decalogue]] given to [[Moses]] on [[Mount Sinai]] and the ten plagues against the Egyptians, by which the Chosen People were delivered from captivity. There are several different listings of these ten Angelic ranks, which inevitably overlap to a certain degree; but whereas Judaism lost its ancient belief in the fall of Angels (witnessed, for instance, by the [[Book of Enoch]]), Christianity on the other hand preserved it, hence its teaching about the nine (remaining) Angelic orders, whose number shall be completed by the souls of those [[Soteriology|redeemed]] through the blood of the [[Jesus Christ|Lamb]].
However, one should be a bit cautious about taking pseudo-Dionysius' model too concretely, as he is the only source we have for such a classification system. The author himself was a fairly early advocate of [[apophatic theology]], which insists on only describing God in the negative. Still, many have accused the writer of wavering somewhere in between Orthodoxy and Neoplatonism, a pagan Greek philosophical system; such critics say that the three groupings of three in the angelic hierarchy derive from [[Neoplatonism]]:
:''The Hellenic concept of the world as "order" and "hierarchy," the strict Platonic division between the "intelligible":''and "sensible" worlds, and the Neoplatonic grouping of beings into "triads" reappear in the famous writings of a:''mysterious early-sixth-century writer who wrote under the pseudonym of Dionysius the Areopagite.''{{ref|1}}
Furthermore, the comparison of the celestial with the earthly breaks down if one takes into account modern science, which tells us of a fourth category of matter and a very debatable number of dimensions (see [[w:String Theory]] if interested). All said and done, this is not to entirely discredit pseudo-Dionysius, who has been much esteemed by numerous [[Church Fathers]] and theologians up to the present day.
== Sources ==
Orthodox Life, Vol. 27, No. 6 (Nov.-Dec., 1977), pp. 39-47.
[http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=1521&letter=A#4364 Jewish Encyclopedia]
*{{note|1}}From ''Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes'' by Fr. [[John Meyendorff]]. New York: Fordham University Press, 1974, p. 27. ISBN 0-8232-0967-9.
