Angels
(Latin angelus; Greek
aggelos; from the Hebrew for "one going" or "one sent";
messenger). The word is used in Hebrew to denote either a divine or human
messenger. It is the spirit-messenger
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 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.
This function of the
angelic host is expressed by the word "assistance" (Job, i, 6: ii,
1), and our More than once we are told of seven angels whose special function
it is thus to "stand before God's throne" The same thought may be
intended by "the angel of His presence"
God's messengers to mankind
‘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.
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
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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).
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.
Hierarchical organization
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. 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 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 those 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.
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 Essences 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.
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 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,
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'.
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".
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 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 that was jealous of
the human race. 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 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.
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. xxi, 15: "The riches unjustly
accumulated shall be vomited up, an angel shall drag him out of his
house;"
. 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 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.
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.
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.
Incarnation; as the Word of God the sublime character
in which He is one day to reveal Himself to men.
But the great
Latins, St. Jerome, St. Augustine, and St. Gregory the Great, held the clearly
styles Christ the 'Angel of great Counsel.'" He concludes: "It is the name of the
indweller, not of the temple."
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),
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.
Some notes on the common angels:
Each Archangel has legions of angles to answer his call.
Angels can be looked upon as those who endeavor to awaken our inner
consciousness.
The term angel is a term used to describe all dwellers of
heaven.
Archangel Michael – ‘Who is like God’ – ‘ the great
Prince’, ‘ Above all’. He is known as the Defender of all of God’s people.
Scripture tells us is Michael who kicked Lucifer and his rebellious fallen
angels our of heaven. All sacred scriptures recognize Michael. It is Michael
who is believed to have rescued Daniel from the lion’s den and also appeared as
the fire of the burning bush to Moses.
Archangel Gabriel – God’s spiritual messenger who brings
good news. It was Gabriel who informed the Virgin Mary that she would bring
forth a son and would call him the name Jesus. It was Gabriel is the messenger
angel who appeared and brought a revelation to Muhammad on the “Night of the
Power and Glory”. In Islam Gabriel is the Angel of Humanity.
Archangel Raphael – Known as the divine healer,
interested in God’s pilgrim travelers, his names means God Has Healed. This
high archangel is responsible for the healing of the earth
Archangel Uriel – His name means the “Light of God”
According to the Book of Enoch id was Uriel who was sent by God to warn Noah of
the impending flood. One of his many titles is Preside Over Hades; another is
The Archangel of Salvation.
“All that I have seen teaches me to trust the creator for
all I have not seen” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
