The Angels

In Catholic Teaching and Tradition

Rev. Fr. Pascale Parente

• Publisher: TAN Books
• Year: 1994
• eBook ISBN: 9781618904997
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Denominations

From Scripture, Fathers & Doctors of the Church, St. Thomas, official pronouncements, holy writers. Their creation, test, fall, nature, powers, duties, Saints who conversed with, nine choirs, famous Angels, etc. 189 Pp.. Impr.(Formerly: Beyond Space).

PART I

THE SPIRIT WORLD

CHAPTER I

THE ANGELS

MORNING STARS OF CREATION

PURE spirits, the closest image and likeness of the Creator, were the effect of a divine act of creation. A spirit world was produced, at once, in its fullness and in its grandeur. When, at the word of the Almighty, light’s first rays lit up the primeval, shapeless world, still “wrapped in a mist as in swaddling clothes,” a wondrous song, a joyful melody filled the new heavens with never-ending strains. The Lord recalls these primordial times when He asks, “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? … When the morning stars praised me together, and all the sons of God made joyful melody.”¹ These “sons of God,” living witnesses of the creation of the material universe, were our Angels, the morning stars of creation.

It is an article of faith, firmly established in Scripture and Tradition and clearly expressed in Christian Doctrine from the beginning, that this spirit world, our Angels, began with time and was created by God. This traditional belief of both the Old and the New Testament was given a more formal and solemn expression in the fourth Lateran Council in 1215: God “by his almighty power created together in the beginning of time both creatures, the spiritual and the corporeal, namely the Angelic and the earthly, and afterwards the human, as it were an intermediate creature, composed of body and spirit.”²

From this definition we learn that the Angelic spirits were created when time began and not from eternity. Like all other creatures they were produced by the almighty power of God, out of nothing. It would be heretical to affirm that the Angels are an emanation of the divine substance.³ Spiritual substances do not divide or split or multiply in any form whatever, nor change one into another; their individual existence can only be explained by creation.

The creation of the Angels is implicitly affirmed in all those passages of Sacred Scripture in which it is stated that all things were made by God; explicitly and formally their creation is mentioned by Saint Paul in one of those incomplete enumerations of the Angelic orders: “In Him [the Son of God, the Logos] were all things created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether Thrones, or Dominations, or Principalities, or Powers: all things were created by Him and in Him.”⁴

Creation itself is a revealed truth, not so the exact time when the Angels were created. Nothing definite can be determined on this point from Sacred Scripture. Neither Jewish nor Christian Tradition agrees on the time when the spirit world, our Angels, came into existence. With many of the fathers of the Church we believe as very probable that the Angels were created long before the material world. They were certainly created before man, because we find them already distinguished as good Angels and fallen Angels on man’s first appearance on Earth.⁵ This circumstance would seem to imply that a long time, one or more cosmic period, had elapsed from the time of their creation. It does not seem probable that God, who created this world for His own glory, would have no created intelligences to witness the awe-inspiring act of its making. The passage from Job quoted above seems to prove that such witnesses did exist. They saw the marvelous manifestations of the Divine Wisdom, Power and Goodness and praised the Lord, filling the heavens with “joyful melody.” Man himself was not there at the beginning of creation to give glory to God; some created intelligence must have been present. The Angels were the first splendors created to reflect the glory of the Eternal. The first creative act must have produced a creature to the image and similitude of God, a creature able to understand, love, thank and praise God. When the whole material world had been created, the Lord formed another similar creature, “a little less than the Angels,” consisting of body and spirit, able to know, love and serve Him on Earth as the Angels do in Heaven. We like to imagine the creation of the material universe placed between the creations of two orders of rational beings: one heavenly, purely spiritual (the Angels) and one earthly, partly material, partly spiritual (Man).⁶

Saint Thomas, with some of the fathers of the Church, regards as more probable the opinion maintaining that the Angels were created together with the material universe because they are part of that universe. He does not regard as erroneous the opinion of those who hold that they were created before the visible world.⁷ The peculiar astronomical notions common in his day attributed to the Angels many duties that pertained to the physical government of the world, and thus they appeared more as a necessary part of the visible world than they actually are.

Another reason for that opinion is the authority of some of the fathers who saw the creation of the Angels in the words of Genesis, chapter 1:1, more exactly in the creation of Heaven: “In the beginning God created heaven and earth.” Thus, for example, Saint Epiphanius: “The word of God clearly declares that the Angels were neither created after the stars nor before heaven and earth. It must be regarded as certain and unshakable the opinion that says: None of the created things did exist before heaven and earth, because ‘in ]the beginning God created heaven and earth’ so that this was the beginning of all creation, before which none of the created things existed.”⁸ Origen, however, is more careful with his opinion: “This also is part of the doctrine of the Church, that there are certain Angels of God and certain good Powers, which are His servants in accomplishing the salvation of men. When these, however, were created, or of what nature they are, or how they exist, is not clearly stated.”⁹ He does not read in the words of Genesis what is not written there. Modern Scripture scholars reject as unfounded the opinion of those who see the creation of the Angels in the creation of Heaven. Thus, according to Ceuppens, the whole account of Genesis, chapter 1:1, treats only of things visible, not of the invisible and immaterial: “Heaven and earth is an expression used by the Hebrews to mean the whole visible universe, the cosmos, the well-ordered world as we see it.”¹⁰ Even more emphatic is Father Von Hummelauer: “Now the Angels are certainly not meant by the word heaven, because they are never called heaven … nor does the context offer sufficient reason for us to affirm that Angels are truly implied even though only implicitly.”¹¹

The wording of the definition by the Lateran Council, reported before, which seems to be opposed to the opinion of priority of creation of the Angels, creates no difficulty whatever. It is said there that God “created together [simul] in the beginning of time both creatures, the spiritual and the corporeal, namely the Angelic and the earthly.” It is commonly admitted that the word “together” (simul) in this case has not the meaning of parity of time or simultaneousness, but parity of action. The expression was taken from Scripture where it is said, “He that liveth forever created all things together,”¹² meaning not that all things were created at the same time, but that all things were likewise created with no indication of time. Saint Thomas points out that this definition of the Lateran Council was aimed at a Manichaean heresy of emanation. It did not bear on the time of creation of the Angels but on the fact that they were produced by the act of creation, just like the corporeal, earthly creatures.¹³

Both the existence and the creation of the Angels are dogmas of faith presenting one of the most inspiring and consoling aspects of our religion. As the first creatures of this universe, the Angels were the first revelation of the Supreme Goodness of God and of His transcendent Beauty. Even though part of the universe, the Angels really constitute a world to themselves, the spirit world, so exalted and so different from our visible, material world.

When God created the first life in this world He bade it to multiply upon the earth. The Lord blessed the first human couple He had created, saying, “Increase and multiply and fill the earth.”¹⁴ It took mankind many thousands of years to discover and fill most of the earth. Not so with the spirit world. There are no more Angels today than when they were first created at the beginning of time. They filled the heavens from the start, and their number was complete from the beginning. Their spiritual nature, just like our human soul, cannot be produced except by the Divine act of creation, with the difference that the human soul is created only in the course of time, when it is needed to inform a human body at the time of generation. Except for the apostasy and desertion of the fallen Angels, the Angelic family has remained the same from the time it was called into being by the loving Father of all.

No matter when the Angels began, there was a time in that endless eternity when the Angels, like all the other creatures, did not exist. The Eternal Wisdom, the Word of God, refers to such an epoch in the timeless existence of God, where It says, “The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His ways, before He made anything from the beginning.”¹⁵ Therefore, they were not created from all eternity but in the beginning of time.

THE POPULATION OF THE ANGELIC WORLD

The exact number of Angels that inhabit the heavenly Jerusalem has not been revealed. To try to determine their number must appear like an idle question, since man has not been able even to determine the exact number of stars. The vast number of stars, each one a sun in itself, is awe-inspiring and quite beyond our powers of comprehension. Until now, no known mechanical device has been able to even remotely suggest the magnitude of this visible universe. What must be the magnitude, the splendor and the glory of the invisible, immutable Angelic part of the universe? What the vastness of the spirit world, the number of those splendors that decorate the heavenly home, the House of God, if the house of man, our Earth, is surrounded by such an infinity of stars? Who has ever been able to count all the men and women who have inhabited this Earth from the beginning to the present time?

Without Divine revelation we would be unable to know not only the number of Angels but even whether they exist at all. It is then on the data of revelation that we must depend in order to give some vague idea of the transcending vastness of the spirit world. These data actually suggest a multitude of Angels that is beyond all our power of comprehension.

Describing the throne of God surrounded by heavenly spirits, the prophet Daniel is at a loss in determining the number of those heavenly beings, our good Angels: “Thousands of thousands ministered to Him, and ten thousand times a hundred thousand stood before Him.”¹⁶ Bible commentators tell us that the figures here given by Daniel do not express a definite number. They serve to convey the idea of a multitude that is far beyond the power of human language to express. More than figures, they are really hyperbolical expressions for an innumerable multitude of Angels standing around the throne of God.¹⁷

The throne of the Most High, surrounded by His hosts of myriads and myriads of Angels, is a picture occurring frequently in the Scriptures of the Old Testament: “I saw the Lord sitting on His throne, and all the army of heaven standing by Him on the right hand and on the left.”¹⁸ Awe inspiring is the vision described by the Prophet Isaias: “I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and elevated, and his train filled the temple. Upon it stood the Seraphims, the one had six wings, and the other had six wings: with two they covered his face, and with two they covered his feet, and with two they flew. And they cried one to another, and said: Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God of hosts, all the earth is full of his glory.”¹⁹ Saint John the Evangelist, in his Apocalypse, describes a vision of many thousands of Angels round about the throne of God: “And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many Angels round about the throne … and the number of them was thousands of thousands.”²⁰

Saint Thomas holds that the multitude of the Angels far exceeds every multitude of material creatures,²¹ quoting to this effect from Pseudo Dionysius who wrote, “The scriptural tradition regarding the Angels gives their number as thousands of thousands, multiplying and repeating the very highest numbers we have, thus clearly showing that the Orders of the Celestial Beings are innumerable for us. So many are the blessed Hosts of the Supernal Intelligences that they wholly surpass the feeble and limited range of our material numbers.”²² The more perfect creatures, writes Saint Thomas in the same article of the Summa, are produced in greater number, because God intends primarily the perfection of the universe in the production of things. With this principle in mind it is easy to understand how the number of the Angelic spirits must exceed beyond all comparison the number of human souls created from the beginning of the world until now and to be created from now to the end of the world.

When we speak of the number of Angels we refer to the good Angels who now live with God and minister to Him both in Heaven and on Earth, that portion of the spirit world which remained faithful to God after the fal...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• About the author
• Contents
• Part I: The Spirit World
• Chapter I: The Angels
• Chapter II: The Angelic Nature And Its Operation
• Chapter III: The Sons Of God And The Sons Of Perdition
• Chapter IV: Angels And Their Names
• Chapter V: The Nine Choirs Of The Angels
• Chapter VI: Proper Names Of The Angels
• Part II: Our Guardian Angels And Angelophanies
• Chapter VII: The Guardian Angels
• Chapter VIII: The Guardian Angels of Nations And of Churches
• Chapter IX: What Guardian Angels do for us
• Chapter X: Angelophanies or Angelic Manifestations
• Chapter XI: Liturgical Cult And Devotions
• Bibliography
• Notes
• A Collection Of Classic Artwork
• Favorite Prayers to Our Lady
• Tan Classics
• Become a Tan Missionary!
• Share the Faith with Tan Books
• Tan Books