SERAPHS, the plural ot the word rrt saraph, burning, or fiery :' celestial beings described in Is. vi. z-6 as an order of angels or ministers of God who stand around his throne, having each six wings, and also hands and feet, and praising God with their voices. They were therefore of human form, and, like the Cherubim furnished , vvith wings as the swift messengers of GOd. Some ' have indeed identified the Cherubim and Seraphim as the same beings, but under names descriptive of different qualities ; Seraphim denoting the burning and dazzling appearance of the beings elsewhere described as Cherubim. It would be difficult either to prove or disprove this • but there are differences between the cherubim of 'Ezekiel and the seraphim of Isaiah, which it does not appear easy to recon cile. The living creatures ' of the former prophet had four wings • the 6 seraphim' of the latter, six ; and while the Cherubim had four faces, the sera phim had but one (comp. Is. vi. 2, 3 ; Ezeir. 5-r2). If the figures were in all cases.purely sym bolical, the difference does not signify ; and whether they were so or not must be determined by the considerations which have been indicated under CHERUBIM.
There is much symbolical force and propriety in the attitude in which the Seraphim are described as standing ; while two of their wings were kept ready for instant flight in the senrice of God, with two others they hid their face, to express their nil.
worthiness to look upon the divine majesty (comp. Exod. ill. 6), and with two others they covered their feet or the whole of the lower part of their bodies--a practice which still prevails in the East, when persons appear in a monarch's presence. It may be seen in the artide SERPENT, that a species of serpent was called Saraph ; and this has led some to conceive that the Seraphim were a kind of basilisk-headed Cherubim (Bauer, Theolog. A. T. p. 189) ; or else that they were animal forms with serpents' heads, such as we find figured in the ancient temples of Thebes (Gesen. Comment. zn Yes.) Hitzig and others identify the Seraphim with the Egyptian Serapis ; for although it is true that the worship of Serapis was not introduced into Egypt till the time of the Ptolemies, it is known that this was but a modification of the more ancient worship of Kneph, who was figured under the form of a serpent of the same kind, the head of which afterwards formed the crest of Sempis.—J. K.