Angel. (from Gk. ἄγγελος, ‘messenger’). The belief in angels is amply attested in the Bible, both in the OT and in the NT. They are represented as an innumerable multitude (e.g. Gen. 32:1 f., Dan. 7:10) of beings intermediate between God and man. In the older books interest is chiefly confined to their mission (cf. Gen. 16:7 ff. Jgs. 6:11 ff.), whereas in the later ones their nature is more clearly defined. In Isaiah’s vision (Is. 6) and in Job they form the heavenly court and sing the praises of God, whose commands they obediently perform for nations (Dan. 10:13 and 21, 12:1) as well as for individuals, and even three proper names, *Michael (Dan. 10:13), *Gabriel (Dan. 8:16), and *Raphael (Tob. 3:17), are recorded. In *Philo and the Jewish apocryphal writings, esp. *Enoch, angelology is highly developed, and angels, being the constant intermediators between God and man, were also regarded as the promulgators of the Law, a view accepted by the NT writers (Acts 7:53, Gal. 3:19, Heb. 2:2). The Lord Himself sanctioned the popular belief. Acc. to His teaching the angels are spiritual beings (Mt. 22:30) who enjoy always the vision of God in heaven (Mt. 18:10) and will accompany Him at His Second Coming (Mt. 16:27). The NT authors represent Christ as surrounded by angels at the most important periods of His life. They announce His Incarnation (Mt. 1:20, 24) and His Birth (Lk. 2:9–15); they minister to Him in the desert (Mt. 4:11), strengthen Him in His agony (Lk. 22:43), would be ready to defend Him when He is captured (Mt. 26:53), and are the first witnesses of His Resurrection (Mt. 28:2–7; Jn. 20:12 f.). In Rev. the role of angels is paramount; their worship in heaven is the prototype of the worship of the Church, and their ministry at the end of the world is the visionary development of the Lord’s teaching. On the other hand, the dangers of an exaggerated cult paid to them by some heretical sects in the early days of Christianity are reflected in Col. (2:18) and perhaps also in Heb., which lays special emphasis on the superiority of Christ to the angels (1:4 ff.).
In the first cents., while the great Trinitarian and Christological doctrines were being worked out, interest in angels was largely confined to Jewish-Christian circles, where Christ was sometimes seen as a kind of angel. Otherwise, their existence was accepted by the Fathers as a truth of faith; their immaterial and spiritual nature, however, was not fully recognized until *Dionysius the Ps.-Areopagite and St *Gregory the Great. *Origen attributed to them an ethereal body, an opinion which seems to have been shared by St *Augustine. There was similar uncertainty on the subject of their present state. St *Ignatius of Antioch had affirmed that they must believe in the Blood of Christ in order to be saved (Smyrn. 6. 1), and Origen held the good angels to be no less capable of falling than the demons were of being saved. This teaching was rejected by most of the orthodox Fathers, though traces of it are to be found in *Didymus, *Cyril of Jerusalem, and others. Perhaps the greatest interest was taken in the question of the angelic orders, raised by the two enumerations in Eph. 1:21 and Col 1:16 respectively. By amalgamating both passages five different ranks were arrived at, to which were sometimes added ‘Angels’ (here understood as a separate species of beings) and ‘*Archangels’ (so *Irenaeus), and also the *Seraphim of Is. 6:2 and the *Cherubim of Ez. 1:5; but their number and order were only fixed by Dionysius in his ‘Celestial Hierarchies’, where they are arranged in three hierarchies containing three choirs each, in the order of Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones; Dominations, Virtues, and Powers; Principalities, Archangels, and Angels. Of these only the last two choirs have an immediate mission to men.
In the Middle Ages Dionysius’ speculative doctrine was taken over and developed by the *Schoolmen, and a treatise on angels became a part of the Commentaries on the ‘Sentences’ of *Peter Lombard from the 13th cent. onwards. The doctrines of St *Thomas Aquinas and *Duns Scotus were foreshadowed by St *Albert the Great and St *Bonaventure respectively. St Thomas and all the Schoolmen after him are at one on the point that angels are intelligences not destined to be united to a body, and thereby differ from the human soul. Acc. to St Thomas they are not composed of ‘form’ and ‘matter’, but are subsistent forms, each differing from the other and forming a species in himself. From their immateriality follows that they are by nature immortal and incorruptible; having neither extension nor dimensions they cannot be in a place, but can move and act on material beings by applying their power to the place in which they want to be. Duns Scotus, on the other hand, regards angels as composite beings consisting of form and matter, though the latter is not corporeal. There may be several angels in the same species, and several angels may occupy the same place. The angelic mode of knowledge had already been discussed by St Augustine (Civ. Dei, 11. 29), from whom St Thomas took over the distinction between scientia matutina and scientia vespertina, the former being supernatural knowledge which sees its objects in the Divine Word, and the latter natural, which knows individual things not, indeed, as man, through the senses, but through the intelligible species infused into the angelic intelligence at its creation. St Thomas held that its proper object was the immaterial, and its mode not discursive reasoning, but the intuitive perception of conclusions in their principles, a view contested by Duns Scotus, and later by F. *Suárez, who held that angels can reason. On the question of the Fall, St Thomas taught that the angelic will is such that one good or bad act fixes him irrevocably in good or evil, whereas Duns Scotus regarded a succession of acts as necessary. On several other points both schools of thought were in agreement. Thus most Scholastics taught that the angels were created at the same time as the material universe, that they were elevated to a state of grace in order to undergo a test followed either by supernatural beatitude or eternal damnation, and that the chief Divine mysteries, esp. the Incarnation, were then revealed to them. In the question of the hierarchy they all followed Dionysius more or less closely.
The teaching of post-medieval theologians runs on the lines of a Thomist–Scotist synthesis as developed by Suárez. The RC Church has made few pronouncements on the subject. While Catholic Christianity in general teaches the existence of angels, their perfect spirituality, and their creation before man, and enjoins a cult similar to that given to the saints, Protestants have tended to shrink from definition and speculation in the matter.
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