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

the adversary who pleads before the Lord against Jesus the High Priest. Isaias,

xiv, and Ezech., xxviii, are for the Fathers the loci classici regarding the fall of

Satan (cf. Tertull., adv. Marc., II, x); and Our Lord Himself has given colour to this

view by using the imagery of the latter passage when saying to His Apostles: "I

saw Satan like lightning falling from heaven" (Luke, x, 18). In New Testament

times the idea of the two spiritual kingdoms is clearly established. The devil is a

fallen angel who in his fall has drawn multitudes of the heavenly host in his train.

Our Lord terms him "the Prince of this world" (John xiv, 30); he is the tempter of

the human race and tries to involve them in his fall (Matthew, xxv, 41; II Peter, ii,

4: Ephes., vi, 12: II Cor., xi, 14; xii, 7). Christian imagery of the devil as the

dragon is mainly derived from the Apocalypse (ix, 11-15; xii, 7-9), where he is

termed "the angel of the bottomless pit", "the dragon", "the old serpent", etc.,

and is represented as having actually been in combat with Archangel Michael.

The similarity between scenes such as these and the early Babylonian accounts

of the struggle between Merodach and the dragon Tiamat is very striking.

Whether we are to trace its origin to vague reminiscences of the mighty saurians

which once people the earth is a moot question, but the curious reader may

consult Bousett, "The Anti-Christ Legend" (tr. by Keane, London, 1896). The

translator has prefixed to it an interesting discussion on the origin of the

Babylonian Dragon-Myth.

The Term "Angel" In The Septuagint

We have had occasion to mention the Septuagint version more than once, and it

may not be amiss to indicate a few passages where it is our only source of

information regarding the angels. The best known passage is Is., ix, 6, where the

Septuagint gives the name of the Messias, as "the Angel of great Counsel". We

have already drawn attention to Job, xx, 15, where the Septuagint reads "Angel"

instead of "God", and to xxxvi, 14, where there seems to be question of evil

angels. In ix 7, Septuagint (B) adds: "He is the Hebrew (v, 19) say of

"Behemoth": "He is the beginning of the ways of God, he that made him shall

make his sword to approach him:, the Septuagint reads: "He is the beginning of

God's creation, made for His Angels to mock at", and exactly the same remark

is made about "Leviathan", xli, 24. We have already seen that the Septuagint

generally renders the term "sons of God" by "angels", but in Deut., xxxii, 43, the

Septuagint has an addition in which both terms appear: "Rejoice in Him all ye

heavens, and adore Him all ye angels of God; rejoice ye nations with His people,

and magnify Him all ye Sons of God." Nor does the Septuagint merely give us

these additional references to angels; it sometimes enables us to correct difficult

passages concerning them in the Vulgate and Massoretic text. Thus the difficult

Elim of MT in Job, xli, 17, which the Vulgate renders by "angels", becomes "wild

beasts" in the Septuagint version. The early ideas as to the personality of the

various angelic appearances are, as we have seen, remarkably vague. At first the

angels are regarded in quite an impersonal way(Gen., xvi, 7).They are God's

vice-gerents and are often identified with the Author of their message (Gen., xlviii,

15-16). But while we read of "the Angels of God" meeting Jacob (Gen., xxxii, 1)

we at other times read of one who is termed "the Angel of God" par excellence,

e.g. Gen., xxxi, 11. It is true that, owing to the Hebrew idiom, this may mean no

more than "an angel of God", and the Septuagint renders it with or without the

article at will; yet the three visitors at Mambre seem to have been of different

ranks, though St. Paul (Heb., xiii, 2) regarded them all as equally angels; as the

story in Ge., xiii, develops, the speaker is always "the Lord". Thus in the account

of the Angel of the Lord who visited Gideon (Judges, vi), the visitor is alternately

spoken of as "the Angel of the Lord" and as "the Lord". Similarly, in Judges, xiii,

the Angel of the Lord appears, and both Manue and his wife exclaim: "We shall

certainly die because we have seen God." This want of clearness is particularly

apparent in the various accounts of the Angel of Exodus. In Judges, vi, just now

referred to, the Septuagint is very careful to render the Hebrew "Lord" by "the

Angel of the Lord"; but in the story of the Exodus it is the Lord who goes before

them in the pillar of a cloud (Exod., xiii 21), and the Septuagint makes no change

(cf. also Num., xiv, 14, and Neh., ix, 7-20. Yet in Exod., xiv, 19, their guide is

termed "the Angel of God". When we turn to Exod., xxxiii, where God is angry

with His people for worshipping the golden calf, it is hard not to feel that it is God

Himself who has hitherto been their guide, but who now refuses to accompany

them any longer. God offers an angel instead, but at Moses's petition He says

(14) "My face shall go before thee", which the Septuagint reads by autos though

the following verse shows that this rendering is clearly impossible, for Moses

objects: "If Thou Thyself dost not go before us, bring us not out of this place."

But what does God mean by "my face"? Is it possible that some angel of

specially high rank is intended, as in Is., lxiii, 9 (cf. Tobias, xii, 15)? May not this

be what is meant by "the angel of God" (cf. Num., xx, 16)?

That a process of evolution in theological thought accompanied the gradual

unfolding of God's revelation need hardly be said, but it is especially marked in

the various views entertained regarding the person of the Giver of the Law. The

Massoretic text as well as the Vulgate of Exod., iii and xix-xx clearly represent

the Supreme Being as appearing to Moses in the bush and on Mount Sinai; but

the Septuagint version, while agreeing that it was God Himself who gave the Law,

yet makes it "the angel of the Lord" who appeared in the bush. By New

Testament times the Septuagint view has prevailed, and it is now not merely in

the bush that the angel of the Lord, and not God Himself appears, but the angel

is also the Giver of the Law (cf. Gal., iii, 19; Heb., ii, 2; Acts, vii, 30). The person

of "the angel of the Lord" finds a counterpart in the personification of Wisdom in

the Sapiential books and in at least one passage (Zach., iii, 1) it seems to stand

for that "Son of Man" whom Daniel (vii, 13) saw brought before "the Ancient of

Days". Zacharias says: "And the Lord showed me Jesus the high priest standing

before the angel of the Lord, and Satan stood on His right hand to be His

adversary". Tertullian regards many of these passages as preludes to the

Incarnation; as the Word of God adumbrating the sublime character in which He

is one day to reveal Himself to men (cf. adv, Prax., xvi; adv. Marc., II, 27; III, 9: I,

10, 21, 22). It is possible, then, that in these confused views we can trace vague

gropings after certain dogmatic truths regarding the Trinity, reminiscences

perhaps of the early revelation of which the Protevangelium in Ge., iii is but a

relic. The earlier Fathers, going by the letter of the text, maintained that it was

actually God Himself who appeared. he who appeared was called God and acted

as God. It was not unnatural then for Tertullian, as we have already seen, to

regard such manifestations in the light of preludes to the Incarnation, and most of

the Eastern Fathers followed the same line of thought. It was held as recently as

1851 by Vandenbroeck, "Dissertatio Theologica de Theophaniis sub Veteri

Testamento" (Louvain).

But the great Latins, St. Jerome, St. Augustine, and St. Gregory the Great, held

the opposite view, and the Scholastics as a body followed them. St. Augustine

(Sermo vii, de Scripturis, P. G. V) when treating of the burning bush (Exod., iii)

says: "That the same person who spoke to Moses should be deemed both the

Lord and an angel of the Lord, is very hard to understand. it is a question which

forbids any rash assertions bug rather demands careful investigation . . . Some

maintain that he is called both the Lord and the angel of the Lord because he

was Christ, indeed the prophet (Is., ix, 6, Septuagint Ver.) clearly styles Christ

the 'Angel of great Counsel.'" The saint proceeds to show that such a view is

tenable though we must be careful not to fall into Arianism in stating it. He points

out, however, that if we hold that it was an angel who appeared, we must explain

how he came to be called "the Lord," and he proceeds to show how this might

be: "Elsewhere in the Bible when a prophet speaks it is yet said to be the Lord

who speaks, not of course because the prophet is the Lord but because the Lord

is in the prophet; and so in the same way when the Lord condescends to speak

through the mouth of a prophet or an angel, it is the same as when he speaks by

a prophet or apostle, and the angel is correctly termed an angel if we consider

him himself, but equally correctly is he termed 'the Lord' because God dwells in

him." He concludes: "It is the name of the indweller, not of the temple." And a

little further on: "It seems to me that we shall most correctly say that our

forefathers recognized the Lord in the angel," and he adduces the authority of the

New Testament writers who clearly so understood it and yet sometimes allowed

the same confusion of terms (cf. Heb., ii, 2, and Acts, vii, 31-33). The saint

discusses the same question even more elaborately, "In Heptateuchum," lib. vii,

54, P. G. III, 558. As an instance of how convinced some of the Fathers were in

holding the opposite view, we may note Theodoret's words (In Exod.): "The whole

passage (Exod., iii) shows that it was God who appeared to him. But (Moses)

called Him an angel in order to let us know that it was not God the Father whom

he saw -- for whose angel could the Father be? -- but the Only-begotten Son, the

Angel of great Counsel" (cf. Eusebius, Hist. Eccles., I, ii, 7; St. Irenaeus, Haer.,

iii, 6). But the view propounded by the Latin Fathers was destined to live in the

Church, and the Scholastics reduced it to a system (cf. St. Thomas, Quaest.,

Disp., De Potentia, vi, 8, ad 3am); and for a very good exposition of both sides of

the question, cf. "Revue biblique," 1894, 232-247.

Angels In Babylonian Literature

The Bible has shown us that a belief in angels, or spirits intermediate between

God and man, is a characteristic of the Semitic people. It is therefore interesting

to trace this belief in the Semites of Babylonia. According to Sayce (The

Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia, Gifford Lectures, 1901), the engrafting

of Semitic beliefs on the earliest Sumerian religion of Babylonia is marked by the

entrance of angels or sukallin in their theosophy. Thus we find an interesting

parallel to "the angels of the Lord" in Nebo, "the minister of Merodach" (ibid.,

355). He is also termed the "angel" or interpreter of the will or Merodach (ibid.,

456), and Sayce accepts Hommel's statement that it can be shown from the

Minean inscriptions that primitive Semitic religion consisted of moon and star

worship, the moon-god Athtar and an "angel" god standing at the head of the

pantheon (ibid., 315). The Biblical conflict between the kingdoms of good and evil

finds its parallel in the "spirits of heaven" or the Igigi--who constituted the "host"

of which Ninip was the champion (and from who he received the title of "chief of

the angels") and the "spirits of the earth", or Annuna-Ki, who dwelt in Hades

(ibid. 355). The Babylonian sukalli corresponded to the spirit0-messengers of the

Bible; they declared their Lord's will and executed his behests (ibid., 361). Some

of them appear to have been more than messengers; they were the interpreters

and vicegerents of the supreme deity, thus Nebo is "the prophet of Borsippa".

These angels are even termed "the sons" of the deity whose vicegerents they

are; thus Ninip, at one time the messenger of En-lil, is transformed into his son

just as Merodach becomes the son of Ea (ibid., 496). The Babylonian accounts

of the Creation and the Flood do not contrast very favourably with the Biblical

accounts, and the same must be said of the chaotic hierarchies of gods and

angels which modern research has revealed. perhaps we are justified in seeing

all forms of religion vestiges of a primitive nature-worship which has at times

succeeded in debasing the purer revelation, and which, where that primitive

revelation has not received successive increments as among the Hebrews,

results in an abundant crop of weeds.

Thus the Bible certainly sanctions the idea of certain angels being in charge of

special districts (cf. Dan., x, and above). This belief persists in a debased form in

the Arab notion of Genii, or Jinns, who haunt particular spots. A reference to it is

perhaps to be found in Gen., xxxii, 1,2: "Jacob also went on the journey he had

begun: and the angels of God met him: And when he saw then he said: These

are the camps of God, and he called the name of that place Mahanaim, that is,

'Camps.' " Recent explorations in the Arab district about Petra have revealed

certain precincts marked off with stones as the abiding-laces of angels, and the

nomad tribes frequent them for prayer and sacrifice. These places bear a name

which corresponds exactly with the "Mahanaim" of the above passage in

Genesis (cf. Lagrange, Religions Semitques, 184, and Robertson Smith, Religion

of the Semites, 445). Jacob's vision at Bethel (Gen., xxviii, 12) may perhaps

come under the same category. Suffice it to say that not everything in the Bible

is revelation, and that the object of the inspired writings is not merely to tell us

new truths but also to make clearer certain truths taught us by nature. The

modern view, which tends to regard everything Babylonian as absolutely primitive

and which seems to think that because critics affix a late date to the Biblical

writings the religion therein contained must also be late, may be seen in Haag,

"Theologie Biblique" (339). This writer sees in the Biblical angels only primitive

deities debased into demi-gods by the triumphant progress of Monotheism.

Angels in the Zend-Avesta

Attempts have also been made to trace a connection between the angels of the

Bible and the "great archangels" or "Amesha-Spentas" of the Zend-Avesta. That

the Persian domination and the Babylonian captivity exerted a large influence

upon the Hebrew conception of the angels is acknowledged in the Talmud of

Jerusalem, Rosch Haschanna, 56, where it is said that the names of the angels

were introduced from Babylon. it is, however, by no means clear that the angelic

beings who figure so largely in the pages of the Avesta are to be referred to the

older Persian Neo-Zoroastrianism of the Sassanides. If this be the case, as

Darmesteter holds, we should rather reverse the position and attribute the

Zoroastrian angels to the influence of the Bible and of Philo. Stress has been laid

upon the similarity between the Biblical "seven who stand before God" and the

seven Amesha-Spentas of the Zend-Avesta. But it must be noted that these

latter are really six, the number seven is only obtained by counting "their father,

Ahura-Mazda," among them as their chief. Moreover, these Zoroastrian

archangels are more abstract that concrete; they are not individuals charged with

weighty missions as in the Bible.

Angels in the New Testament

Hitherto we have dwelt almost exclusively on the angels of the Old Testament,

whose visits and messages have been by no means rare; but when we come to

the New Testament their name appears on every page and the number of

references to them equals those in the Old Dispensation. It is their privilege to

announce the Zachary and Mary the dawn of Redemption, and to the shepherds

its actual accomplishment. Our Lord in His discourses talks of them as one who

actually saw them, and who, whilst "conversing amongst men", was yet receiving

the silent unseen adoration of the hosts of heaven. He describes their life in

heaven (Matt., xxii, 30; Luke, xx, 36); He tell us how they form a bodyguard

round Him and at a word from Him would avenge Him on His enemies (Matt.,

xxvi, 53); it is the privilege of one of them to assist Him in His Agony and sweat

of Blood. More than once He speaks of them as auxiliaries and witnesses at the

final judgment (Matt., xvi, 27), which indeed they will prepare (ibid., xiii, 39-49);

and lastly, they are the joyous witnesses of His triumphant Resurrection (ibid.,

xxviii, 2). It is easy for skeptical minds to see in these angelic hosts the mere

play of Hebrew fancy and the rank growth of superstition, but do not the records

of the angels who figure in the Bible supply a most natural and harmonious

progression? In the opening page of the sacred story of the Jewish nation is

chose out from amongst others as the depositary of God's promise; as the

people from whose stock He would one day raise up a Redeemer. The angels

appear in the course of this chosen people's history, now as God's messengers,

now as that people's guides; at one time they are the bestowers of God's law, at

another they actually prefigure the Redeemer Whose divine purpose they are

helping to mature. They converse with His prophets, with David and Elias, with

Daniel and Zacharias; they slay the hosts camped against Israel, they serve as

guides to God's servants, and the last prophet, Malachi, bears a name of peculiar

significance; "the Angel of Jehovah." He seems to sum up in his very name the

previous "ministry by the hands of angels", as though God would thus recall the

old-time glories of the Exodus and Sinai. The Septuagint, indeed, seems not to

know his name as that of an individual prophet and its rendering of the opening

verse of his prophecy is peculiarly solemn: "The burden of the Word of the Lord of

Israel by the hand of His angel; lay it up in your hearts." All this loving ministry

on the part of the angels is solely for the sake of the Saviour, on Whose face

they desire to look. Hence when the fullness of time was arrived it is they who

bring the glad message, and sing "Gloria in excelsis Deo." They guide the

newborn King of Angels in His hurried flight into Egypt, and minister to Him in the

desert. His second coming and the dire events that must precede that, are

revealed to His chosen servant in the island of Patmos, It is a question of

revelation again, and consequently its ministers and messengers of old appear

once more in the sacred story and the record of God's revealing love ends fittingly

almost as it had begun: "I, Jesus, have sent My angel to testify to you these

things in the churches" (Apoc., xxii, 16). It is easy for the student to trace the

influence of surrounding nations and of other religions in the Biblical account of

the angels. Indeed it is needful and instructive to do so, but it would be wrong to

shut our eyes to the higher line of development which we have shown and which

brings out so strikingly the marvellous unity and harmony of the whole divine

story of the Bible. (See also Angels in Early Christian Art)

In addition to works mentioned above, see St. Thomas, Summa Theol., I, QQ. 50-54 and 106-114;

Suarez De Angelis, lib. i-iv.

Hugh Pope

Transcribed by Jim Holden

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume I

Nihil Obstat, March 1, 1907. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor

Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

The Catholic Encyclopedia: NewAdvent.org