(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 Sacrificis",
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-regents 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 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 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 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 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. - Editors Note. This link cannot be
found)
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
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