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ANGEL.......
A backer of a play, campaign, actor etc. A messenger - the Vaunt Courier. Hark the Herald! Their depiction in religious painting far outweighs their recorded presence in either Old and NT stories . Even clerics concede that beauty is a surer magnet to the impoverished eye than textual accuracy. Belief in angels provides an acceptable alternative to either theological commitment or corn circles and aliens in UFOs, whose innocence and messenger role mirror and mimmick that of angels. However, extra-terrestrials of the angelic kind score over the UFO variety both historically and aesthetically. Since the time of Botticelli angels and music have been inseparable. St. Cecilia is the patron saint of music. The truth is that humans need angels and always have. These winged go-betweens have their origin much earlier than Christian art. Winged figures have been found in pottery in Ur, and in an Egyptian tomb a winged Isis appears. Poetically, ‘the Sons of God.’ Sometimes they appear as protectors and on occasion in human form. The phrase ‘Angel of the Lord’ means a direct visitation of God to a human being (divine communication). Angels of the churches (may be human beings - BSs of the churches etc). Guardian angels. Apostle: literally, ‘like an angel, a messenger’, ‘the deliverer of a message’, ‘an ambassador’, ‘a delegate’, ‘one commissioned.’ Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominions, Virtues, Powers, Principalities, Archangels and angels (Ephesians 1:21 and Colossians 1:16). The seven holy angels: Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel, Chamuel, Jophiel and Zadkiel. 69% of Americans believe in angels. Many claim to have seen one! A glossy magazine on the subject of angels sells 200,000 copies per month.
Plato said “God does not deal directly with men; it is by means of winged spirits that all communication of God with man is carried out”. The Hebrew word for angel is ‘malak’ which means ‘go-between’. In the Bible, Jacob had a dream while sleeping near the village of Beth El. He saw a ladder or stairway extending up to heaven with angels ceaselessly walking up and down it. These angels carry news of the world back to the heavenly abodes. Some angels are indistinguishable from ordinary wo/men. Hence the expression ‘entertaining angels unawares’ (‘an elderly angel traveling incognito’). In AD 478 a Syrian monk began to categorize and describe the various types of angels. Dionysis the Aeropagite split them up into nine orders in his book ‘Die Hierarchia Celesti’. The seraphim, cherubim and thrones do not have contact with our world at all. Angels and archangels have dealings with man. The Bible and Apocrypha mention seven angels: Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Anael, Camael, Sachiel and Cassiel. All have the suffix ‘el’ attached to their names.
Gabriel appeared to the shepherds outside Bethlehem and to the wise men (see ‘Magi’). Angels are said to number millions. Guardian angels function as protectors ie, chapter 10 and 12 of Daniel mentions the archangel Michael ‘the great prince who has charge of your people’ (the angel of the Jewish people). The Koran says that we each have four angels. Arthur Machen was the author of the ‘Angels of Mons’. Matthew 18:10: “See you don’t despise any of these little ones. Their angels in heaven, I tell you, are always in the presence of my Father in heaven”. Angel Princes: guardian angels for nations ie, Angel Princes of Persia who meet in a heavenly princely court (council of God). They have a mediatory role between earthly empires and the kingdom of God. God acts and appears through these angel princes through whom the final victory of the kingdom of God will be announced. Cherub/Cherubim: bearers of the divine throne and protectors of the Ark of the Covenant having many wings and covered with eyes (symbol of the omnipresence and omniscience of the higher spiritual realms). Frequently shown as Tetramorphs having four or six wings (its attribute being the wheel).
The Aztecs had angels, and so do American Indians, Hindus and of course Muslims, who share Christianity’s top ranking angels. The Greeks were particularly keen on their messengers from the gods. Hermes was not the only one, and Nike, the ‘Winged Victory’, is the classical antecedent for all those exultant Renaissance angels that continue to define our image of them now.
Winged angels are largely a New Testament phenomenon. Old Testament (Judaic) angels tended to appear as ordinary mortals, without haloes or wings. The most important source of angelology is not the Bible at all but extra-Biblicial Jewish, Christian and Gnostic texts written between 200 BC and 200 AD, which present a cosmos teeming with angelic activity. They are the guardian of sacred things.
Literary works inspired by angles include Dante (Catholic) and Milton (Protestant). Stories of the miraculous intervention of angels or strangers offering life-saving help and vanishing are as nebelous as UFO reports. Angels traditionally act as divine messengers and represent a higher form of consciousness emenating outside the human mind. The angel Gabriel (Strong One of God) acted as enunciator to Mary. The Kabbalah was received through angelic revelation. Koran: Gabriel, the angel of revelation, who writes down the divine decrees. Michael, the champion, who fights the battle of faith. Azrael, the angel of death and Israfel, who is commissioned to sound the trumpet of resurrection.
Examples of these beings are: Uriel, Raphael, Michael and Gabriel mentioned above. Holy Guardian Angel (the Higher Self). Their function (role) is to carry out the will of God for individuals or nations. ‘Angel of Yahweh’. They are known as the ‘Heavenly Host’. They are also said to be the guardians of individuals and churches. They are created beings. Maimonides equated them with Aristotle’s incorporeal intelligences. In Islamic Africa, angels are said to be created by God from pure light. In Caithness seals were believed to be fallen angels. Abaddon (Bible): Angel of the Abyss, Apollyon and meaning death, destruction or the lowest stratum of sheol. The ‘Host of Heaven’: the angels. Japanese: ‘tenshi’. Hebrews 13:2, Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. Abaddon: the angel of the bottomless pit (Revelation 9:11). Milton: ‘In all her gates Abaddon rues’ (Paradise Regained, IV, 624).
Gabriel (Muslim): chief of the four favored angels and the spirit of truth. Milton mentions him as chief of the angelic guards placed over paradise. In the Talmud he is mentioned as one of the angels who buried Moses. He is said to have explained to Daniel certain visions (Daniel 8:16-26) and to have appeared to Mary (Luke 1:26). Koran: took Mohammed to heaven on Al Borak and revealed to him his ‘prophetic love’. Israfel: angel of music. Israfel, Gabriel and Michael warned Abraham of Sodom’s destruction. Zacharias officiating one day in the Temple saw the archangel Gabriel standing to the right of the altar. The angel told him that he and Elizabeth would have a son, the new Elijah. Zacharias asked for a sign to substantiate this unlikely event and the angel, chiding him for this lack of faith, condemned him to be dumb until the child’s birth. The child was named John (the Baptist).
William Blake’s (1757-1827) pictures convey a moral purpose by the use of his own symbolic devices. In ‘The Good and Evil Angels’ (1793), he depicts a battle between two angels which symbolize the opposing qualities of dark and light, beauty and ugliness. He is now recognized as one of the giants of the Romantic period who lived in the world of the imagination and the spirit. He claimed he was visited by angels!
Ave Maria: the ‘Hail, Mary’, a prayer in the RC Church, based on the salutation of the angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary and the words of Elizabeth to her. Luke 1:28, 42. The bead on a rosary. Any of the musical settings of the Ave Maria.