cherubn.

Etymology: Old English and Middle English cherubin, Middle English and modern cherub; derived (through French, Latin, Greek) from the Hebrew of the Old Testament, where k'rūb, plural k'rūbīm, are used as explained below. (It has no root or certain etymology in Hebrew, and its derivation is disputed.) From Hebrew the word was adopted without translation by the Septuagint as χερούβ, χερουβίμ (-ίν, -είν), also in the New Testament, Hebrews ix. 5, and by the Vulgate as cherūb, cherūbīn, cherūbīm (the latter in the Clementine text). As the plural was popularly much better known than the singular (e.g. in the Te Deum), the Romanic forms were all fashioned on cherubin, viz. Italian cherubino, plural -i, Spanish querubin, -es, Portuguese querubin, cherubin, French cherubin, plural -s. The earliest English instances are of cerubin, cherubin, taken over from ecclesiastical Latin apparently as a foreign word, and treated implicitly as a singular, sometimes as a proper name, at other times as a collective. From the Middle English period, the popular forms were, as in French, cherubin singular, cherubins plural. Cherubin survived in popular use to the 18th cent.; but in the Bible translations, cherub was introduced from the Vulgate by Wyclif, was kept up by the 16th cent. translators, and gradually drove cherubin into the position of a nonstandard form. In the plural, cherubins is found from the 13th cent.; and although in manuscripts of the earlier Wyclifite version, cherubyn is more frequent (after the Vulgate), the later version has always cherubins; this was retained in ordinary use till the 17th cent. But in the 16th cent., acquaintance with the Hebrew led Bible translators to substitute cherubims: this occurs only once in Coverdale, but always in the Bishops' Bible and version of 1611. From the beginning of the 17th cent., cherubim began to be preferred by scholars (e.g. Milton) to cherubims, and has gradually taken its place; the Revised Version of 1881–5 has adopted it. A regularized plural cherubs arose early in the 16th cent.; in Tyndale, Coverdale and later versions (but not in that of 1611) it occurs beside cherubins, -ims; it is now the ordinary individual plural, the Biblical cherubim being more or less collective. In summary, cherubin, cherubins are the original English forms, as still in French. But, in the process of Biblical translation, cherubin has been supplanted by cherub; and cherubins has been altered successively to cherubims, cherubim; while, concurrently, cherub has been supplied with a new plural cherubs. The foreign form of the plural, coupled with the vagueness of the meaning in many passages, led to curious grammatical treatment even in manuscripts of the Septuagint: here the Hebrew singular and plural are normally reproduced as χερούβ, χερουβίμ (the latter taken in Genesis iii. 24 as a neuter plural, as it is in Hebrew ix. 5), yet in Psalm xviii. 10 and the duplicate passage in 2 Samuel xxii. 11, and in 2 Chronicles iii. 11, the Hebrew singular k'rūb (of the Masoretic text) is represented by χερουβίμ, treated as a neuter singular (ἐπὶ τῷ χερουβίμ, τοῦ χερουβὶμ τοῦ ἑτέρου). In the former case the Vulgate follows the Septuagint with cherubim. Since, in the Latin, there is, in many passages, nothing to show the number of cherubin, it is no cause of surprise that readers often took it as singular, and it is actually used as a singular (masculine or neuter) in many mediæval Latin hymns and litanies. The history of the sense, or notion attached to the word, lies outside English, though English use reflects all its varieties. In the Old Testament the cherubim are ‘living creatures’ with two or four wings, but the accounts of their form are not consistent: cf. the earlier notices with those of Ezekiel's vision (Ezekiel i, x). They first appear in Genesis iii. 24, as guardians of the tree of life. This name was also given to the two images overlaid with gold placed with wings expanded over the mercy-seat in the Jewish tabernacle and temple, over which the shekinah or symbol of the divine presence was manifested. A frequent expression for the Divine Being was ‘he that dwelleth (or sitteth) between (or on) the cherubim’. Psalm xviii. 10 (also contained in 2 Samuel xxii. 11) says of Jehovah ‘He rode upon a cherub (Septuagint cherubim), and did fly’. It is in connection with this class of passages that the word first appears in English, and it is difficult to know exactly how the word was construed or used. The inclusion of the cherubim among angels appears to belong to Christian Mysticism. According to the 4th cent. work attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite, the heavenly beings are divided into three hierarchies, each containing three orders or choirs, viz. (according to the received order) seraphim, cherubim, thrones; dominions, virtues (δυνάμεις), powers; principalities, archangels, angels. Cherubim were thus made the second of the nine orders, having the special attribute of knowledge and contemplation of divine things. Their angelic character is that which chiefly prevails in later notions and in Christian art.