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St. James Parish Community |
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 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 werecreated"
( 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?" (Hebrews 1:14). 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
1:6; 2:1), and
our Lord refers to it
as their perpetual occupation (Matthew 18:10). More
than once we are told of seven angels whose special function it is thus to
"stand before God's
throne" (Tobit 12:15; Revelation 8:2-5).
The same thought may be intended by "the angel of His presence" (Isaiah 63:9) 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 (Genesis 16); 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 13), and the
angel Gabriel instructs Daniel
(Daniel 8:16),
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 2:9), 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. Zechariah
1:9-14; 2:3; 4:5; 5:10). 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 (Exodus 14:19; Baruch 6:6).
Similarly it is the common view of the Fathers that by "the
prince of the Kingdom of the Persians" (Daniel 10:13-21) 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 16:9).
The Septuagint (Deuteronomy 32:8),
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 (2 Samuel 14:17-20; 14:27) and once by Achis of Geth (1 Samuel 29:9). It is
even applied by Esther
to Assuerus
(Esther 15:16),
and St. Stephen's face
is said to have looked "like the face of an angel" as he stood before
the Sanhedrin (Acts 6:15). 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 (Matthew 4:6) are well
known, and Judith
accounts for her heroic deed by saying: "As the Lord
liveth, His angel hath been my keeper" (13:20). These
passages and many like them (Genesis 16:6-32; Hosea 12:4; 1 Kings 19:5; Acts 12:7; Psalm 33:8), 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 one 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"
(Matthew 18:10),
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 (Tobit
12:12) says: "I offered thy prayer to the Lord" (cf. Job 5:1 (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. Augustine, Reply to Faustus
XX.21). An undue cult of angels was reprobated by St. Paul (Colossians 2:18),
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 (2 Samuel 24:15-17),
and more explicitly, I Par., xxi, 14-18). Even the wind rustling in the tree-tops
was regarded as an angel (2 Samuel 5:23-24; 1 Chronicles 14:14, 15).
This is more explicitly stated with regard to the pool of Probatica
(John 5:1-4),
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
Theologicć 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 (Ezekiel 1), and are
actually called cherub in Ezechiel
10. 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
6:6. 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 1 Thessalonians
4:15; but St. Paul
has furnished us with two other lists of names of the heavenly cohorts. He
tells us (Ephesians
1:21) that Christ is raised up "above
all principality, and power, and virtue, and dominion"; and, writing to
the Colossians (1:16),
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 (2:15)
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 (Bel. 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 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 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 Theologica 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 (Genesis
3) 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
(Genesis 6:1) 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 Genesis 6,
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 1:6, 2:1 and 38:7; but on the
other hand, see Psalm
2:1 and 88
(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 Sacrificis", ii; "De Lege Allegorica", I, 12;
III, 73; and for the view of Genesis 6:1, cf. St. Justin, First Apology
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 1 Samuel 19:9, an evil
spirit is said to possess Saul,
though this is probably a metaphorical expression; more explicit is 1 Kings 22:19-23,
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 1 and 2 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 2 Samuel 24:1, with 1 Chronicles 21:1.
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 4:18, 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 33:23: "If a
thousand death-dealing angels should be (against him) not one of them shall
wound him"; and 36:14:
"If their souls
should perish in their youth (through rashness) yet their life shall be wounded by
the angels"; and 21:15:
"The riches
unjustly accumulated shall be vomited up, an angel shall drag him out of his
house;" cf. Proverbs
17:11; Psalm
34:5-6 and 77:49,
and especially Ecclesiasticus 39:33, 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
Zechariah 3:1-3,
Satan is called the adversary who pleads before the Lord
against Jesus the High
Priest. Isaiah 14
and Ezekiel 28 are for
the Fathers the loci
classici regarding the fall of Satan (cf. Tertullian, Against Marcion 2.10); 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 10:18). 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 14:30); he is
the tempter of the human race and tries to
involve them in his fall (Matthew 25:41; 2 Peter 2:4; Ephesians 6:12; 2 Corinthians 11:14;
12:7). Christian imagery of the
devil as the dragon is mainly derived from the Apocalypse (9:11-15 and 12:7-9), 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, 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 Isaiah 9:6, where the
Septuagint gives the
name of the Messias, as "the Angel of great Counsel". We
have already drawn attention to Job 20:15, where the
Septuagint reads
"Angel" instead of "God", and to 36:14, where there
seems to be question of evil
angels. In 9:7,
Septuagint (B) adds:
"He is the Hebrew (5:19) 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" (41:24).
We have already seen that the Septuagint generally
renders the term "sons of God" by
"angels", but in Deuteronomy 32:43,
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 41:17, 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 (Genesis 16:7). They
are God's vice-regents
and are often identified with the Author of their message (Genesis 48:15-16).
But while we read of "the Angels of God" meeting Jacob
(Genesis 32:1) we
at other times read of one who is termed "the Angel of God" par
excellence, e.g. Genesis
31:11. 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 (Hebrews 13:2)
regarded them all as equally angels; as the story in Genesis 13 develops, the
speaker is always "the Lord". Thus in the account of the Angel of the
Lord who visited Gideon
(Judges 6), the visitor
is alternately spoken of as "the Angel of the Lord" and as "the
Lord". Similarly, in Judges
13, 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 6,
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 (Exodus 13:21), and
the Septuagint makes
no change (cf. also Numbers
14:14, and Nehemiah
9:7-20. Yet in Exodus
14:19, their guide is termed "the Angel of God". When we turn
to Exodus 33, 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 Isaiah 63:9 (cf. Tobit
12:15)? May not this be what is meant by "the angel of God" (cf. Numbers 20:16)? 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 Exodus 3 and 19-20 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. Galatians 3:19;
Hebrews 2:2; Acts 7:30). 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 (Zechariah 3:1) it
seems to stand for that "Son
of Man" whom Daniel (7:13) 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. Against Praxeas 16; Against Marcion 2.27, 3.9, 1.10, 1.21-22). 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 Genesis 3 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" ( 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 (Exodus 3) 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 but rather demands careful
investigation . . . Some maintain that he is called both the Lord and the angel
of the Lord because he wasChrist,
indeed the prophet ( Isaiah 9:6, Septuagint Version)
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 theLord
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. Hebrews 2:2,
and Acts 7:31-33).
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 (Exodus 3) 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 theOnly-begotten
Son, the Angel of great Counsel" (cf. Eusebius,
Church History
I.2.7; St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies
3:6). 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 thewill
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
spirit-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
ofreligion 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. Daniel 10, 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 Genesis 32:1-2: "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 (Genesis 28:12) 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 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 to 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 (Matthew 22:30; Luke 20:36); He tell
us how they form a bodyguard round Him and at a word from Him would avenge Him
on His enemies (Matthew
26:53); 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 (Matthew 16:27),
which indeed they will prepare (13:39-49); and
lastly, they are the joyous
witnesses of His triumphant Resurrection
(28:2). 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" (Revelation 22:16).
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.)
Sources
In addition to works mentioned above, see St. Thomas, Summa
Theol., I, QQ. 50-54 and 106-114; Suarez De Angelis, lib. i-iv. About this page
APA citation. (1907). Angels. In The Catholic
Encyclopedia. MLA citation. "Angels." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 1. Transcription. This article was transcribed for New Advent by Jim Holden.
Ecclesiastical approbation.
Nihil Obstat. March 1, 1907.
Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal
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