| Angels |
| (Latin angelus; Greek aggelos; from the Hebrew for "one going" or "one sent"; messenger). |
| The word is used in Hebrew to denote indifferently either a divine or |
| human messenger. The Septuagint renders it by aggelos which also has both |
| significations. The Latin version, however, distinguishes the divine or |
| spirit-messenger from the human, rendering the original in the one case by |
| angelus and in the other by legatus or more generally by nuntius. In a few |
| passages the Latin version is misleading, the word angelus being used where |
| nuntius would have better expressed the meaning, e.g. Isaiah 18:2; 33:3, 6. |
| It is with the spirit-messenger alone that we are here concerned. We have to |
| discuss |
| the meaning of the term in the Bible, |
| the offices of the angels, |
| the names assigned to the angels, |
| the distinction between good and evil spirits, |
| the divisions of the angelic choirs, |
| the question of angelic appearances, and |
| the development of the scriptural idea of angels. |
| The angels are represented throughout the Bible as a body of spiritual beings |
| intermediate between God and men: "You have made him (man) a little less than |
| the angels" (Psalm 8:6). They, equally with man, are created beings; "praise ye |
| Him, all His angels: praise ye Him, all His hosts . . . for He spoke and they were |
| made. He commanded and they were created" (Psalm 148:2, 5: Colossians |
| 1:16, 17). That the angels were created was laid down in the Fourth Lateran |
| Council (1215). The decree "Firmiter" against the Albigenses declared both the |
| fact that they were created and that men were created after them. This decree |
| was repeated by the Vatican Council, "Dei Filius". We mention it here because |
| the words: "He that liveth for ever created all things together" (Ecclesiasticus |
| 18:1) have been held to prove a simultaneous creation of all things; but it is |
| generally conceded that "together" (simul) may here mean "equally", in the |
| sense that all things were "alike" created. They are spirits; the writer of the |
| Epistle to the Hebrews says: "Are they not all ministering spirits, sent to minister |
| to them who shall receive the inheritance of salvation?" (Heb. i, 14). |
| Attendants at God's throne |
| It is as messengers that they most often figure in the Bible, but, as St. |
| Augustine, and after him St. Gregory, expresses it: angelus est nomen officii |
| ("angel is the name of the office") and expresses neither their essential nature |
| nor their essential function, viz.: that of attendants upon God's throne in that |
| court of heaven of which Daniel has left us a vivid picture: |
| I behold till thrones were placed, and the Ancient of Days sat: His |
| garment was white as snow, and the hair of His head like clean |
| wool: His throne like flames of fire: the wheels of it like a burning |
| fire. A swift stream of fire issued forth from before Him: thousands |
| of thousands ministered to Him, and ten thousand times a hundred |
| thousand stood before Him: the judgment sat and the books were |
| opened. (Daniel 7:9-10; cf. also Psalm 96:7; Psalm 102:20; Isaiah |
| 6, etc.) |
| This function of the angelic host is expressed by the word "assistance" (Job, i, 6: |
| ii, 1), and our Lord refers to it as their perpetual occupation (Matt., xviii, 10). More |
| than once we are told of seven angels whose special function it is thus to "stand |
| before God's throne" (Tob., xii, 15; Apoc., viii, 2-5). The same thought may be |
| intended by "the angel of His presence" (Is., lxiii, 9) an expression which also |
| occurs in the pseudo-epigraphical "Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs". |
| God's messengers to mankind |
| But these glimpses of life beyond the veil are only occasional. The angels of the |
| Bible generally appear in the role of God's messengers to mankind. They are His |
| instruments by whom He communicates His will to men, and in Jacob's vision |
| they are depicted as ascending and descending the ladder which stretches from |
| earth to heaven while the Eternal Father gazes upon the wanderer below. It was |
| an angel who found Agar in the wilderness (Gen., xvi); angels drew Lot out of |
| Sodom; an angel announces to Gideon that he is to save his people; an angel |
| foretells the birth of Samson (Judges, xiii), and the angel Gabriel instructs Daniel |
| (Dan., viii, 16), though he is not called an angel in either of these passages, but |
| "the man Gabriel" (9:21). The same heavenly spirit announced the birth of St. |
| John the Baptist and the Incarnation of the Redeemer, while tradition ascribes to |
| him both the message to the shepherds (Luke, ii, 9), and the most glorious |
| mission of all, that of strengthening the King of Angels in His Agony (Luke |
| 22:43). The spiritual nature of the angels is manifested very clearly in the account |
| which Zacharias gives of the revelations bestowed upon him by the ministry of an |
| angel. The prophet depicts the angel as speaking "in him". He seems to imply |
| that he was conscious of an interior voice which was not that of God but of His |
| messenger. The Massoretic text, the Septuagint, and the Vulgate all agree in |
| thus describing the communications made by the angel to the prophet. It is a |
| pity that the "Revised Version" should, in apparent defiance of the above-named |
| texts, obscure this trait by persistently giving the rendering: "the angel that |
| talked with me: instead of "within me" (cf. Zach., i, 9, 13, 14; ii, 3; iv, 5; v, 10). |
| Such appearances of angels generally last only so long as the delivery of their |
| message requires, but frequently their mission is prolonged, and they are |
| represented as the constituted guardians of the nations at some particular crisis, |
| e.g. during the Exodus (Exod., xiv, 19; Baruch, vi, 6). Similarly it is the common |
| view of the Fathers that by "the prince of the Kingdom of the Persians" (Dan., x, |
| 13; x, 21) we are to understand the angel to whom was entrusted the spiritual |
| care of that kingdom, and we may perhaps see in the "man of Macedonia" who |
| appeared to St. Paul at Troas, the guardian angel of that country (Acts. xvi, 9). |
| The Septuagint (Deut., xxxii, 8), has preserved for us a fragment of information on |
| this head, though it is difficult to gauge its exact meaning: "When the Most High |
| divided the nations, when He scattered the children of Adam, He established the |
| bounds of the nations according to the number of the angels of God". How large |
| a part the ministry of angels played, not merely in Hebrew theology, but in the |
| religious ideas of other nations as well, appears from the expression "like to an |
| angel of God". It is three times used of David (II K., xiv, 17, 20; xiv, 27) and once |
| by Achis of Geth (I K., xxlx, 9). It is even applied by Esther to Assuerus (Esther, |
| xv, 16), and St. Stephen's face is said to have looked "like the face of an angel" |
| as he stood before the Sanhedrin (Acts, vi, 15). |
| Personal guardians |
| Throughout the Bible we find it repeatedly implied that each individual soul has its |
| tutelary angel. Thus Abraham, when sending his steward to seek a wife for Isaac, |
| says: "He will send His angel before thee" (Genesis 24:7). The words of the |
| ninetieth Psalm which the devil quoted to our Lord (Matt., iv, 6) are well known, |
| and Judith accounts for her heroic deed by saying: "As the Lord liveth, His angel |
| hath been my keeper" (xiii, 20). These passages and many like them (Gen., xvi, |
| 6-32; Osee, xii, 4; III K., xix, 5; Acts, xii, 7; Ps., xxxiii, 8), though they will not of |
| themselves demonstrate the doctrine that every individual has his appointed |
| guardian angel, receive their complement in our Saviour's words: "See that you |
| despise not on of these little ones; for I say to you that their angels in Heaven |
| always see the face of My Father Who is in Heaven" (Matt, xviii, 10), words |
| which illustrate the remark of St. Augustine: "What lies hidden in the Old |
| Testament, is made manifest in the New". Indeed, the book of Tobias seems |
| intended to teach this truth more than any other, and St. Jerome in his |
| commentary on the above words of our Lord says: "The dignity of a soul is so |
| great, that each has a guardian angel from its birth." The general doctrine that |
| the angels are our appointed guardians is considered to be a point of faith, but |
| that each individual member of the human race has his own individual guardian |
| angel is not of faith (de fide); the view has, however, such strong support from the |
| Doctors of the Church that it would be rash to deny it (cf. St. Jerome, supra). |
| Peter the Lombard (Sentences, lib. II, dist. xi) was inclined to think that one |
| angel had charge of several individual human beings. St. Bernard's beautiful |
| homilies (11-14) on the ninetieth Psalm breathe the spirit of the Church without |
| however deciding the question. The Bible represents the angels not only as our |
| guardians, but also as actually interceding for us. "The angel Raphael (Tob., xii, |
| 12) says: "I offered thy prayer to the Lord" (cf. Job, v, 1 (Septuagint), and 33:23 |
| (Vulgate); Apocalypse 8:4). The Catholic cult of the angels is thus thoroughly |
| scriptural. Perhaps the earliest explicit declaration of it is to be found in St. |
| Ambrose's words: "We should pray to the angels who are given to us as |
| guardians" (De Viduis, ix); (cf. St. Aug., Contra Faustum, xx, 21). An undue cult |
| of angels was reprobated by St. Paul (Col., ii, 18), and that such a tendency long |
| remained in the same district is evidenced by Canon 35 of the Synod of |
| Laodicea. |
| As Divine Agents Governing The World |
| The foregoing passages, especially those relating to the angels who have charge |
| of various districts, enable us to understand the practically unanimous view of the |
| Fathers that it is the angels who put into execution God's law regarding the |
| physical world. The Semitic belief in genii and in spirits which cause good or evil |
| is well known, and traces of it are to be found in the Bible. Thus the pestilence |
| which devastated Israel for David's sin in numbering the people is attributed to an |
| angel whom David is said to have actually seen (II K., xxiv, 15-17), and more |
| explicitly, I Par., xxi, 14-18). Even the wind rustling in the tree-tops was regarded |
| as an angel (II K., v, 23, 24; I Par., xiv, 14, 15). This is more explicitly stated with |
| regard to the pool of Probatica (John, v, 1-4), though these is some doubt about |
| the text; in that passage the disturbance of the water is said to be due to the |
| periodic visits of an angel. The Semites clearly felt that all the orderly harmony of |
| the universe, as well as interruptions of that harmony, were due to God as their |
| originator, but were carried out by His ministers. This view is strongly marked in |
| the "Book of Jubilees" where the heavenly host of good and evil angels is every |
| interfering in the material universe. Maimonides (Directorium Perplexorum, iv and |
| vi) is quoted by St. Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theol., I:1:3) as holding that the |
| Bible frequently terms the powers of nature angels, since they manifest the |
| omnipotence of God (cf. St. Jerome, In Mich., vi, 1, 2; P. L., iv, col. 1206). |
| Hierarchical organization |
| Though the angels who appear in the earlier works of the Old Testament are |
| strangely impersonal and are overshadowed by the importance of the message |
| they bring or the work they do, there are not wanting hints regarding the |
| existence of certain ranks in the heavenly army. |
| After Adam's fall Paradise is guarded against our First Parents by cherubim who |
| are clearly God's ministers, though nothing is said of their nature. Only once |
| again do the cherubim figure in the Bible, viz., in Ezechiel's marvellous vision, |
| where they are described at great length (Ezech., i), and are actually called |
| cherub in Ezechiel, x. The Ark was guarded by two cherubim, but we are left to |
| conjecture what they were like. It has been suggested with great probability that |
| we have their counterpart in the winged bulls and lions guarding the Assyrian |
| palaces, and also in the strange winged men with hawks' heads who are |
| depicted on the walls of some of their buildings. The seraphim appear only in the |
| vision of Isaias, vi, 6. |
| Mention has already been made of the mystic seven who stand before God, and |
| we seem to have in them an indication of an inner cordon that surrounds the |
| throne. The term archangel occurs only in St. Jude and I Thess., iv, 15; but St. |
| Paul has furnished us with two other lists of names of the heavenly cohorts. He |
| tells us (Ephes., i, 21) that Christ is raised up "above all principality, and power, |
| and virtue, and dominion"; and, writing to the Colossians (i, 16), he says: "In Him |
| were all things created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether |
| thrones or dominations, or principalities or powers." It is to be noted that he uses |
| two of these names of the powers of darkness when (ii, 15) he talks of Christ as |
| "despoiling the principalities and powers . . . triumphing over them in Himself". |
| And it is not a little remarkable that only two verses later he warns his readers |
| not to be seduced into any "religion of angels". He seems to put his seal upon a |
| certain lawful angelology, and at the same time to warn them against indulging |
| superstition on the subject. We have a hint of such excesses in the Book of |
| Enoch, wherein, as already stated, the angels play a quite disproportionate part. |
| Similarly Josephus tells us (Be. Jud., II, viii, 7) that the Essenes had to take a |
| vow to preserve the names of the angels. |
| We have already seen how (Daniel 10:12-21) various districts are allotted to |
| various angels who are termed their princes, and the same feature reappears still |
| more markedly in the Apocalyptic "angels of the seven churches", though it is |
| impossible to decide what is the precise signification of the term. These seven |
| Angels of the Churches are generally regarded as being the Bishops occupying |
| these sees. St. Gregory Nazianzen in his address to the Bishops at |
| Constantinople twice terms them "Angels", in the language of the Apocalypse. |
| The treatise "De Coelesti Hierarchia", which is ascribed to St. Denis the |
| Areopagite, and which exercised so strong an influence upon the Scholastics, |
| treats at great length of the hierarchies and orders of the angels. It is generally |
| conceded that this work was not due to St. Denis, but must date some centuries |
| later. Though the doctrine it contains regarding the choirs of angels has been |
| received in the Church with extraordinary unanimity, no proposition touching the |
| angelic hierarchies is binding on our faith. The following passages from St. |
| Gregory the Great (Hom. 34, In Evang.) will give us a clear idea of the view of the |
| Church's doctors on the point: |
| We know on the authority of Scripture that there are nine orders of |
| angels, viz., Angels, Archangels, Virtues, Powers, Principalities, |
| Dominations, Throne, Cherubim and Seraphim. That there are |
| Angels and Archangels nearly every page of the Bible tell us, and |
| the books of the Prophets talk of Cherubim and Seraphim. St. |
| Paul, too, writing to the Ephesians enumerates four orders when he |
| says: 'above all Principality, and Power, and Virtue, and |
| Domination'; and again, writing to the Colossians he says: 'whether |
| Thrones, or Dominations, or Principalities, or Powers'. If we now |
| join these two lists together we have five Orders, and adding |
| Angels and Archangels, Cherubim and Seraphim, we find nine |
| Orders of Angels. |
| St. Thomas (Summa Theologica I:108), following St. Denis (De Coelesti |
| Hierarchia, vi, vii), divides the angels into three hierarchies each of which |
| contains three orders. Their proximity to the Supreme Being serves as the basis |
| of this division. In the first hierarchy he places the Seraphim, Cherubim, and |
| Thrones; in the second, the Dominations, Virtues, and Powers; in the third, the |
| Principalities, Archangels, and Angels. The only Scriptural names furnished of |
| individual angels are Raphael, Michael, and Gabriel, names which signify their |
| respective attributes. Apocryphal Jewish books, such as the Book of Enoch, |
| supply those of Uriel and Jeremiel, while many are found in other apocryphal |
| sources, like those Milton names in "Paradise Lost". (On superstitious use of |
| such names, see above). |
| The number of angels |
| The number of the angels is frequently stated as prodigious (Daniel 7:10; |
| Apocalypse 5:11; Psalm 67:18; Matthew 26:53). From the use of the word host |
| (sabaoth) as a synonym for the heavenly army it is hard to resist the impression |
| that the term "Lord of Hosts" refers to God's Supreme command of the angelic |
| multitude (cf. Deuteronomy 33:2; 32:43; Septuagint). The Fathers see a |
| reference to the relative numbers of men and angels in the parable of the hundred |
| sheep (Luke 15:1-3), though this may seem fanciful. The Scholastics, again, |
| following the treatise "De Coelesti Hierarchia" of St. Denis, regard the |
| preponderance of numbers as a necessary perfection of the angelic host (cf. St. |
| Thomas, Summa Theol., I:1:3). |
| The evil angels |
| The distinction of good and bad angels constantly appears in the Bible, but it is |
| instructive to note that there is no sign of any dualism or conflict between two |
| equal principles, one good and the other evil. The conflict depicted is rather that |
| waged on earth between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of the Evil One, |
| but the latter's inferiority is always supposed. The existence, then, of this inferior, |
| and therefore created, spirit, has to be explained. |
| The gradual development of Hebrew consciousness on this point is very clearly |
| marked in the inspired writings. The account of the fall of our First Parents (Gen., |
| iii) is couched in such terms that it is impossible to see in it anything more than |
| the acknowledgment of the existence of a principle of evil who was jealous of the |
| human race. The statement (Gen., vi, 1) that the "sons of God" married the |
| daughters of men is explained of the fall of the angels, in Enoch, vi-xi, and |
| codices, D, E F, and A of the Septuagint read frequently, for "sons of God", oi |
| aggeloi tou theou. Unfortunately, codices B and C are defective in Ge., vi, but it |
| is probably that they, too, read oi aggeloi in this passage, for they constantly so |
| render the expression "sons of God"; cf. Job, i, 6; ii, 1; xxxviii, 7; but on the other |
| hand, see Ps., ii, 1; lxxxviii, & (Septuagint). Philo, in commenting on the |
| passage in his treatise "Quod Deus sit immutabilis", i, follows the Septuagint. |
| For Philo's doctrine of Angels, cf. "De Vita Mosis", iii, 2, "De Somniis", VI: "De |
| Incorrupta Manna", i; "De Sacrifciis", ii; "De Lege Allegorica", I, 12; III, 73; and for |
| the view of Gen., vi, 1, cf. St. Justin, Apol., ii 5. It should moreover be noted that |
| the Hebrew word nephilim rendered gigantes, in 6:4, may mean "fallen ones". |
| The Fathers generally refer it to the sons of Seth, the chosen stock. In I K., xix, |
| 9, an evil spirit is said to possess Saul, though this is probably a metaphorical |
| expression; more explicit is III B., xxii, 19-23, where a spirit is depicted as |
| appearing in the midst of the heavenly army and offering, at the Lord's invitation, |
| to be a lying spirit in the mouth of Achab's false prophets. We might, with |
| Scholastics, explain this is malum poenae, which is actually caused by God |
| owing to man's fault. A truer exegesis would, however, dwell on the purely |
| imaginative tone of the whole episode; it is not so much the mould in which the |
| message is cast as the actual tenor of that message which is meant to occupy |
| our attention. |
| The picture afforded us in Job, i and ii, is equally imaginative; but Satan, perhaps |
| the earliest individualization of the fallen Angel, is presented as an intruder who is |
| jealous of Job. He is clearly an inferior being to the Deity and can only touch Job |
| with God's permission. How theologic thought advanced as the sum of revelation |
| grew appears from a comparison of II K, xxiv, 1, with I Paral., xxi, 1. Whereas in |
| the former passage David's sin was said to be due to "the wrath of the Lord" |
| which "stirred up David", in the latter we read that "Satan moved David to number |
| Israel". In Job. iv, 18, we seem to find a definite declaration of the fall: "In His |
| angels He found wickedness." The Septuagint of Job contains some instructive |
| passages regarding avenging angels in whom we are perhaps to see fallen |
| spirits, thus xxxiii, 23: "If a thousand death-dealing angels should be (against |
| him) not one of them shall wound him"; and xxxvi, 14: "If their souls should |
| perish in their youth (through rashness) yet their life shall be wounded by the |
| angels"; and xxi, 15: "The riches unjustly accumulated shall be vomited up, an |
| angel shall drag him out of his house;" cf. Prov., xvii, 11; Ps., xxxiv, 5, 6; lxxvii, |
| 49, and especially, Ecclesiasticus, xxxix, 33, a text which, as far as can be |
| gathered from the present state of the manuscript, was in the Hebrew original. In |
| some of these passages, it is true, the angels may be regarded as avengers of |
| God's justice without therefore being evil spirits. In Zach., iii, 1-3, Satan is called |