Angels: Lesson 1

VOCABULARY - A couple of terms to become familiar with:

 

Angelophany: the actual appearance of an angel to man; the appearance to man, in visible form, of angels.

 

Theophany: the visible manifestation of a deity to a human, a divine manifestation.

ANGLES ARE CREATED BEINGS

Angels were created by a divine act of God.

Both the existence and the creation of the angels are dogmas of faith of the Roman Catholic Church. We believe them to be the first creatures (created beings) ever in the universe, and as such, the Angels were the first revelation of the supreme goodness of God and of his transcendent beauty. Even though they are part of the created order of the universe, they really constitute a world unto themselves – a middle realm, which we will discuss a bit further down.

That Angels exist and were created by God is an article of faith which was firmly established in Scripture and Tradition, and clearly expressed in Christian doctrine from the beginning and affirmed throughout. The Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 stated that 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…”

The specific Person of the Godhead who created the angels was the Second Person of the Holy Trinity – the Son. Speaking of Christ Colossians 1:15-17 reads, “He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation; for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

So, we believe God created two orders of rational, created beings:

            1) Heavenly “purely” spiritual beings – angels.

            2) Earthly, partly material, partly spiritual beings – man.

WHEN WERE THEY CREATED?

We do not know the exact time when the angels were created. There are a couple of different schools of thought on when they came into being.

School 1:

Many of the Church fathers believe as very probable they were created long before the material world. Their reasoning is as follows:

            1) They were already distinguished as good angels and fallen angels on man’s first appearance on Earth (Genesis 3:1; 3:24).

            2) It does not seem likely that God, who created this world for His own glory, would have no created intelligences to witness the awe-inspiring act of its making.

            3) Indeed recall God asks Job in 38:4, 7, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth…when all the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?”

This opinion is expressed in the Constitutions of the Apostles, in the Liturgy of the Mass, called Clementina: “By Him [Thy only begotten Son] didst Thou make, before all things, the Cherubim and the Seraphim, the Aeons and the Hosts, the Powers and Authorities, Principalities and Thrones, the Archangels and Angels. And after all these, didst Thou make the visible world by Him, and all the things that are therein.” And in St. Ambrose: “Even though the Angels, the Dominations and the Powers had a beginning, they were already there when this world was made.” Hexaemeron, I, 5, 19. The same opinion is defended by St. Jerome (Super Epist. Ad Titum, I), St. John Damascene (De Fide Orthodoxa, III, 3) and others.

Summary:

So, in summary, the angels were created into existence by God, and there was a time when angels did not exist – like all the other creatures. We don’t know exactly when they were created, but we do know it was before mankind (Adam and Eve) – we just don’t know how long before our ancestral parents the angels were created.

NUMBER: HOW MANY ARE THERE?

We do not know exactly how many angels were created, but we do know that the number is staggering…billions and billions of them. Although we do not know the exact number, the number is finite. Since they were created, there has not been any added nor taken away. There are no more angels today than there was 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.

As for the number of fallen angels, we also do not have a precise count. We only have a ratio, or proportion, which is one of every three. The scriptures state that, “Behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and on his head seven diadems; and his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and cast them to the earth.” Apocalypse 12:3ff.